Delhi Court exempts personal appearance of Sudhir Chaudhary in Mahua Moitra’s defamation case

An Additional Sessions Court in Patiala House Court, New Delhi has exempted Zee News Editor-in-Chief, Sudhir Chaudhary from personally appearing before a Delhi Court on January 29, 2020 in connection with Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra’s defamation case against him..On November 4, 2019, the Court of Metropolitan Magistrate had issued summons to Sudhir Chaudhary and directed him to appear before it on January 29, 2020..The order was passed by Judge Anil Antil in Chaudhary’s revision plea, seeking to impeach the summoning order. .The Order reads, .“..the personal appearance of the petitioner/revisionist/accused is exempted before the learned trial court on 29.01.2019, however, the revisionist shall be duly represented by his counsel before the learned trial court on the date so fixed.”Additional Sessions Court.In its revision plea before the ASJ, Chuadhary has stated that it is undisputed, even by the complainant that he was a resident of Noida, Uttar Pradesh which was beyond the jurisdiction of the Patiala House Courts. .Assailing the proceedings and the summoning order, Chaudhary thus contended that the Metropolitan Magistrate had failed to carry out the inquiry as mandated by Section 202 of the Code of Criminal Procedure..In view of these contentions, the Court issued notice to Moitra in the revision plea and exempted Chaudhary from personally appearing before the Metropolitan Magistrate on January 29..Mahua Moitra had filed the criminal defamation case after Chaudhary alleged that Moitra’s June 25 speech in Parliament on the ‘Seven Signs of Fascism’, was plagiarized. In her pre-summoning statement before the Court, Moitra had called the allegations of plagiarism false, baseless and malicious. Moitra had asserted that in her speech, she “specifically mentioned and attributed” that the signs were taken from a longer list of signs available on a poster in the Holocaust Museum in the USA..She deposed had that Sudhir Chaudhary’s allegation that she had copied the work of one Martin Longman was intended to severely and irreversibly damage and lower her credibility, reputation and impeccable integrity.Moitra alleged that in his evening prime time show, DNA, which is aired all over India, Chaudhary personally attacked her for the speech and made “defamatory imputations and comments” against her, both in her personal and professional capacity..Earlier, while pre-summoning evidence was pending, Chaudhary had approached the Metropolitan Magistrate by filing an application under Section 340 CrPC to initiate criminal action against Moitra for her “false” criminal defamation case and for “playing fraud” with the court..However, when the MM refused to stall the proceedings in view of the application, Chaudhary moved the Additional Sessions Court, which stayed the proceedings before the MM..The stay was set aside by the Delhi High Court in October 2019 and summons were issued to Chaudhary by the Metropolitan Magistrate..Chaudhary was represented by Advocate Vijay Aggarwal with Advocates Naveen Kapila, Neeraj Tiwari..The matter would be heard next on February 26..Read the Order: