Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday told the Supreme Court that he made a mistake by retweeting an allegedly defamatory video circulated by YouTuber Dhruv Rathee related to the BJP IT Cell.
Senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, appearing for Kejriwal, said, “I can say this much that I made a mistake by retweeting.” In its judgement dated February 5, the high court had said that reposting alleged libellous content would attract the defamation law.
A bench of justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta, without issuing notice on a plea of Kejriwal challenging a Delhi High Court order which upheld summons issued to him as an accused in the criminal defamation case, asked the complainant whether he wanted to close the matter in view of the chief minister’s apology.
The chief minister had said in the high court that the trial court failed to appreciate that his tweet was not intended or likely to harm the complainant, Vikas Sankrityayan.
Sankrityayan claimed the YouTube video titled ‘BJP IT Cell Part II’ was circulated by Rathee, who lives in Germany, “wherein a number of false and defamatory allegations were made”.
The case pertains to a defamatory video posted by YouTuber Dhruv Rathee, who asserted that Pandey serves as the second-in-command of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) IT cell and alleged that Pandey had offered ₹50 lakhs through an intermediary to Mahavir Prasad to retract his accusations that the ruling party’s IT cell spreads misinformation and fake news.
Prasad made these allegations in an interview with Rathee, which was uploaded on Rathee’s YouTube channel on March 10, 2018, titled ‘BJP IT Cell Insider Interview.’ Subsequently, on May 7, 2018, Rathee released another video titled ‘BJP IT Cell Part 2,’ accusing Prasad of being offered money.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal retweeted this video on May 7, 2018. Pandey argued that Kejriwal’s retweet contained false and defamatory allegations against him. He contended that, given Kejriwal’s substantial following and without verifying the authenticity of the claims, the Delhi Chief Minister disseminated the video to a wide national and international audience.
Notably, Dhruv Rathee has a history of peddling fake news and has often been called out on Twitter. Rathee has previously targeted Bharatiya government in multiple false allegations including election result manipulation, farmers protest, NRC-CAA, comparing central government with North Korea dictatorship and even ram mandir topic.
Not only dhruv, even his fans have a history of targeting sensitive issues and even other youtubers. In September 2023, YouTuber Karolina Goswami and her husband Anurag Goswami alleged that the supporters of pro-AAP YouTuber Dhruv Rathee attacked them in Germany and France after she fact-checked Rathee.
Trouble began when Karolina was shooting the video, as supporters of Dhruv Rathee appeared and started shouting threats to them. ‘Dhruv Ratheew will destroy you, we will destroy you’, they allegedly screamed at Karolina Goswami.
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