IANS

NEW DELHI A DELHI magistrate on Saturday sent to another judge Lt General (retd) Tejinder Singh’s plea seeking the summoning of army chief General VK Singh in a defamation suit, saying the complainant has lost confidence in the court.

Metropolitan Magistrate Sudesh Kumar, who was scheduled to pass the order on Lt General Tejinder Singh’s plea on Saturday, sent the case file to additional chief metropolitan magistrate (ACMM) at the Patiala House district courts requesting him to pass the order on May 7.” Counsel Anil Kumar Aggarwal (appearing for Tejinder Singh) has exhibited lack of confidence over the court and the manner in which he tried to dictate to this court as to what is required to be mentioned in the proceeding and as what type of inquiries this court has to make reflects his (complainant’s) lack of faith in this court,” said Magistrate Kumar.” Hence, under these circumstances I don’t want to proceed further with the trial in the present complaint,” he said.Magistrate Kumar directed Tejinder Singh to appear before ACMM and said: “Let the matter be placed before the ACMM with requests to pass further orders in this regardon May 7.” He said that the complainant took advantage of the wide media coverage of the matter and tried to put pressure on court for shorter dates. The court also noted that counsel Aggarwal on May 3 moved an application seeking a correction in the order passed in the last hearing held on April 26.

“The tone and tenor of this application reflects an apparent attempt to overreach, browbeat and pressurise this court into falling into lines of dictates of the counsel for complainant,” said Magistrate Kumar.

“The right to reputation being an important fact under Article 21 of the constitution of India but this does not mean that such matter will receive precedence over other priority cases pending before the court,” the court said.

The magistrate said that counsel for complainant appeared to have lost confidence over the courts of law and legal procedure. Lt General Tejinder Singh, in his petition, requested the court to summon and initiate proceedings against the army chief and others for allegedly making libellous statement against him in the media and accusing him of bribery.

Alleging that the officers misused their official position, power and authority to level false charges against him, the retired army officer in his complaint has also named army vice chief Lt General SK Singh, Director General, Military Intelligence, Lt General BS Thakur, Additional Director General of Public Information Major General SL Narsimhan and Directorate General of Public Information staff officer Lt Colonel Hitten Sawhney.