Court imposes fine of Rs 2,500 each on Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia

New Delhi: A court in Delhi on Saturday imposed a fine of Rs 2,500 each on top AAP leaders Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia for their failure to appear before it in connection with a criminal defamation complaint filed against them by Union Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal's lawyer son Amit Sibal.

Metropolitan Magistrate (MM) Sunil Kumar Sharma imposed the cost on Kejriwal and Sisodia while accepting their pleas seeking exemption from personal appearance for the day only.

Kejriwal had sought exemption on the ground that he was in Bangalore for the Lok Sabha election campaigning while Sisodia said he had to rush to Amethi in Uttar Pradesh as AAP leader Kumar Vishwas and other members of the party had sustained injuries after some persons allegedly attacked them there.

The court also released AAP leaders Prashant Bhushan and Shazia Ilmi, who had appeared before it, on an undertaking that they would appear before it on each and every date of hearing. The court has now fixed the matter for April 19.

The court had on July 24 last year summoned Kejriwal, Sisodia, Bhushan and Ilmi on the criminal defamation complaint filed by Amit in which he had alleged that the AAP leaders had said that he had taken advantage of his father's position to represent a telecom company in court cases here.

During the hearing, Bhushan told the court that the matter should be fixed for hearing after April 9 as the Supreme Court was scheduled to hear the plea filed by Amit on that day.

The apex court on February 7 had issued notices to Kejriwal, Sisodia, Bhushan and Ilmi on the plea filed by Amit and the bench had also stayed the Delhi High Court's order of granting exemption to Kejriwal and others from personal appearance before the trial court.

Advocate Mohit Mathur, who appeared for Amit, opposed the contentions of Bhushan and defence counsel Rahul Mehra saying "we cannot keep waiting."