HC grants time to Sirsa to file reply on Satyendra Jain plea in defamation case

The Delhi High Court Monday granted an additional four weeks to Manjinder Singh Sirsa to file a reply on Delhi minister and AAP leader Satyendra Jain's plea related to his criminal defamation case against the Shiromani Akali Dal leader.

Justice Mukta Gupta also granted time to the two other accused - editor and publisher of a media house - to state their stand on the plea and posted the matter for hearing on January 13.

Lawyers appearing for Sirsa and other accused sought time from the court to file their response.

On August 5, the judge had issued notice on Jain's plea challenging a trial court order rejecting his application to cure the defects in a legal document about his defamation complaint and stayed further proceedings before the trial court.

In his petition, Jain informed that he filed a defective certificate under Section 65B of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, which did not agree with the guidelines framed, and thus sought the trial court's permission to file a corrected certificate to authenticate the electronic document about the allegedly defamatory statement in question.

"Trial Court erroneously passed the impugned order dated March 25, 2021, on the finding that the same (the application) is an attempt on part of the Petitioner (Jain) to fill in the lacuna of the case which cannot be allowed under Section 311 of CrPC," the petition said.

The counsel for Jain had submitted that any defect in a Section 65B certificate was curable in nature and no prejudice would be caused to Sirsa if the complainant is recalled to rectify it.

The plea, filed through advocates Gautam Dhamija and Vaibhav Yadav, contended that the deficiency in the certificate could not be termed as a 'lacuna' as the same was only an oversight committed during the trial.

The proceedings in the matter are presently at the stage of clarifications/orders/judgment, the petition said.

Jain had filed a criminal defamation complaint against Sirsa and two others for allegedly defaming him by leveling graft charges against him.

The AAP MLA said that Sirsa made libelous statements by leveling corruption allegations against him based on ''hearsay'' without any proof or evidence supporting it.

A special court in July 2019 had issued notice on the complaint.