New Delhi, Feb 4 (FN Bureau) A Delhi Court on Tuesday dismissed a criminal defamation complaint filed by BJP Leader Rajeev Chandrasekhar against Congress MP Dr. Shashi Tharoor.Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate(ACJM) Paras Dalal after hearing the complaint said, ” This Court having given considerable thought to the facts and circumstances of the present case, finds that there is no imputation which violates the requirement of law so as to initiate trial for criminal defamation against the proposed accused’.There is no prima facie evidence that the proposed accused made any imputation against the complainant. The evidence produced shows that proposed accused never made or intended to make an imputation directly upon the complainant. The interview of April 06, 2024 was shown out of context in the morning news of 3:54 minutes and when the remaining interview of 23 minutes was seen, it can be seen that the proposed accused in his entire interview never made any imputation against the complainant.The court further said, “Another section alleged in the present complaint is Section 171G IPCwhich punishes for publishing or making statement of fact which is false and which he either knows or believes to be false or does not believe to be true, in relation to the personal character or conduct of any candidate with intent to affect the result of an election.
The provision specifically requires that the statement ought to be made in relation to ‘personal character or conduct of any candidate’. As already discussed in the preceding paragraphs, there is no statement made directly, indirectly or in the alternative by the proposed accused against personal character or conduct of the complainant and hence even the requirement of Section 171G IPC is not made out.”For the reasons recorded above, present complaint is dismissed under Section 203 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973″, the court said.It is alleged by Chandrasekhar that Mr. Tharoor defamed him by making false and derogatory statements on national television as he claimed the BJP leader bribed voters in the Thiruvananthapuram constituency during 2024 Lok Sabha polls.The Complaint has examined 13 witnesses at the pre summoning stage and alleged, “The interview(s) was/were published by various news channels as well as on social media platforms at the behest of the proposed accused and resulted in loss of reputation of the complainant in the society.