New Delhi, March 13 The Supreme Court on Friday ordered the status quo in a defamation case filed against BJP leader Koustav Bagchi, who is accused of sharing excerpts from a book on social media that contains allegations about the alleged private life of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
A bench comprising Justices B V Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan issued a notice to the West Bengal government in response to a plea filed by Bagchi against an order of the Calcutta High Court.
The high court had dismissed his petition challenging a trial court order that had issued him a summons in the defamation case.
The dispute originated from a book first published in 2015, which stated that the West Bengal chief minister had secretly married someone. It also contained other alleged details of her private life before she became chief minister.
Bagchi, a lawyer, uploaded some pages of the book on social media platforms and also allegedly made comments about the chief minister's personal life on several television networks.
Subsequently, the public prosecutor filed a complaint before the City Sessions Court, invoking Section 222(2) of the BNSS, 2023 (prosecution for defamation), alleging that an offence punishable under Section 356(2) of the BNS, 2023 (investigation, trial or judgment in absentia of a proclaimed offender) had been committed after obtaining statutory sanction.
The Sessions Court granted the applicant the opportunity to be heard under Section 223 of the BNSS, 2023 (providing the accused with the opportunity to be heard), took cognizance, and issued summons.