Thulla remark: Delhi High Court extends stay on Arvind Kejriwal’s appearance

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday extended the stay on a trial court order summoning Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in a criminal defamation complaint filed against him by a constable.

Justice Mukta Gupta, while extending the relief till July 17, asked the Chief Minister to file his rejoinder to the reply by Delhi Police constable Anil Kumar Taneja, who has sought dismissal of Kejriwal’s petition seeking stay and quashing of the trial court’s order summoning him in a case. Initially on July 13 last year, the high court had granted the relief.

Opposing the Chief Minister’s plea, the constable in his reply had alleged that Kejriwal had “crossed all limits of decency” by using the insulting word ‘Thulla’ for a policemen in an interview in a news channel.

Taneja, who had filed the criminal defamation complaint filed on July 23, 2015, had claimed that by using the word, Kejriwal “has intentionally insulted entire Delhi Police force as a whole and caused unnecessary provocation to the police personnel in Delhi”.

The high court in July last had asked Kejriwal to explain the meaning of word ‘thulla’ he had allegedly used against the policemen while staying the trial court’s order.

The word used by Kejriwal is a Hindi word and the high court wanted to know its meaning as it does not exist in the dictionary.

Earlier, Kejriwal’s counsel had told the court that the word ‘Thulla’ was not used against all policemen but against those indulging in wrong practices.