Order on summoning Digvijay Singh in defamation case on November 17

NEW DELHI: A Delhi court today fixed November 17 for pronouncing its order on whether to summon Congress leader Digvijay Singh as an accused in a criminal defamation case filed against him by BJP President Nitin Gadkari.

The pronouncement of order, scheduled for today, had to be deferred till November 17 as Metropolitan Magistrate Sudesh Kumar was on leave.

After recording the statements of two witnesses on Gadkari's complainant, the court had on October 16 reserved its order for today on whether to summon Singh as accused.

Gadkari has filed the criminal defamation case against Singh, who has accused him of having business links with his party MP Ajay Sancheti who allegedly pocketed Rs 500 crore in the coal block allocation.

The court earlier had recorded the statements of Gadkari and BJP National Secretary Bhupinder Yadav, also a Rajya Sabha MP.

Gadkari, in his statement to the court, had denied having any business ties with Sancheti and had said Singh had levelled "totally false and defamatory" allegations against him to "give the impression that I have been responsible for allocation of coal mines" to Sancheti.

In his petition, filed through advocate Ajay Digpaul, Gadkari has sought Singh's prosecution under sections 499 (defamation) and 500 (punishment for defamation) of the IPC.

In his complaint, Gadkari had said the Congress-led UPA government is facing a lot of heat on account of the irregularities in coal blocks allocation, as brought out by the Comptroller and Auditor General, and accused Singh of making baseless allegations against him to divert attention.