Delhi High Court issues notice to Shashi Tharoor on Rajeev Chandrasekhar's defamation plea

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday asked Congress leader Shashi Tharoor to respond to a defamation plea filed by BJP leader Rajeev Chandrasekhar against him.

Justice Ravinder Dudeja said the "matter required consideration" while issuing notice to Tharoor on a revision petition against the magisterial court's order dismissing Chandrasekhar's criminal defamation case on February 4.

"Issue notice to the respondent. Let the trial court record in digital form with bookmarking be requisitioned," the court said.

Chandrasekhar alleged Tharoor defamed him by making "false" and "derogatory" statements on national television, claiming the BJP leader, his rival in the polls, "bribed" voters in the Thiruvananthapuram constituency during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Tharoor, according to Chandrasekhar, made the allegations "with the intent to lower his reputation and to impact the result of the last general elections while knowing fully well that the statements were false".

Chandrasekhar's counsel said the trial court ignored the evidence to rule no case of defamation was established.

He said that even the sub-collector and nodal officer, model code of conduct, Thiruvananthapuram, on a complaint against Tharoor's statements, had issued a "strict warning" over his unverified averments and directed removal of the objectionable content by the media.

The trial court, however, failed to consider that Tharoor made an attempt to steal a march in the election through false statements right before the election to severely harm Chandrasekhar's credibility and reputation, the lawyer said.

The petitioner, the counsel added, was a former member of Parliament himself and served as a minister in the Central government.

Additional chief judicial magistrate Paras Dalal on February 4 refused to summon Tharoor, saying prima facie "no ingredients of defamation" was made in the complaint.

The trial judge said "not once did Tharoor in any of the three interviews/news bytes published" made a reference to the BJP, NDA or Chandrashekhar.

The only imputation Tharoor made was when he reportedly said "it's natural for the BJP to spend two to three times more than us", which was neither attributable to the complainant nor was it defamatory, it added.

The matter would be heard on September 16.