New Delhi, Jan 16 (PTI) A Delhi court has quashed thesummons issued against ShopClues founder Sandeep Aggarwal in acriminal defamation case filed against him by his estrangedwife and company's co-founder Radhika Ghai Aggarwal.
Additional Sessions Judge Sidharth Sharma passed theorder on a petition filed by Sandeep seeking setting aside ofa magisterial court's May 2017 order summoning him to facetrial in a criminal defamation complaint, filed by his wife.
ShopClues, an online marketplace, was founded in 2011 andvalued at over USD one billion in 2016.
In her defamation complaint before Chief MetropolitanMagistrate, Radhika had sought Sandeep's prosecution alleginghe had published certain "false, defamatory, derogatory andmalicious imputations against her in print, social andelectronic media, with sole motive to damage her reputation".
Advocate Vijay Kumar Aggarwal, appearing for Sandeep, hadtold the court that the accused was living at Gurgaon inHaryana, which was outside the jurisdiction of the magisterialcourt here and that it had not made an appropriate inquirybefore summoning his client.
The petition was opposed by the advocate appearing forRadhika, saying that appropriate inquiry was conducted by themagisterial court before summoning the accused.
"In the order, Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) hasnot mentioned that he is conducting an inquiry under section202 (postponement of issue and either inquire into the casehimself or direct an investigation by police) CrPC which isrequired to be necessarily carried out in the complaint beforehim as the accused is residing in Gurugram, Haryana i.e.
outside the jurisdiction of the CMM, New Delhi," it said.
The sessions court also noted that the magistrate had notsummoned the representatives of newspapers or websites, whichhad allegedly published the defamatory contents, to ascertainthe publication of the articles.
"In light of above discussion, I am of the consideredopinion that the mandatory requirement under provision of 202CrPC have not been complied with in the present matter. Theimpugned order dated May 30, 2017 is set aside," the sessionscourt said.
The sessions court has now directed both the parties toappear before the CMM. PTI UKARC.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.