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A Delhi court dismissed a criminal defamation complaint against Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Tuesday. Additional chief judicial magistrate Paras Dalal refused to summon Tharoor saying prima facie “no ingredients of defamation” was made in the complaint filed by BJP leader Rajeev Chandrasekhar.
"The proposed accused (Tharoor) cannot been seen to impute that Chandrashekhar has bribed any voter. The proposed accused has not even mentioned that his opposition candidate had bribed the voters... Proposed accused in further interviews/news byte even clarifies that chasing such allegations would be futile as none would come forward to accept that they received any money or were promised as such. Proposed accused still in any of the interviews never named the complainant or his party to be bribing for votes," said the verdict.
The development came a day after the Delhi High Court summoned Tharoor in a defamation suit where Chandrasekhar sought ₹10 crore in damages for loss of reputation. Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav had posted the matter on April 28.
The senior BJP leader had previously accused the Tharoor of defaming him by making false and derogatory statements during an interview on national television. The Thiruvananthapuram MP claimed the BJP leader had bribed voters in the constituency during 2024 Lok Sabha polls. The allegations were subsequently published by various news channels as well as propagated via social media platforms — allegedly at the behest of Tharoor. According to Chandrasekhar, the statement hurt his reputation and subsequently led to his loss in the Lok Sabha elections against the Congress leader.
“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, which ultimately resulted in the complainant losing the Lok Sabha Elections, 2024,” his complaint said.
(With inputs from agencies)
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