New Delhi, 01 April (H.S.):
A Delhi court has dismissed a criminal defamation complaint filed by AAP leader Somnath Bharti’s wife, Lipika Mitra, against Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, ruling that the matter does not merit prosecution. The Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (ACJM) at Rouse Avenue Courts, Paras Dalal, rejected the petition and refused to take cognizance of the case, effectively bringing the criminal‑proceedings track to an end.
The complaint stemmed from remarks attributed to Nirmala Sitharaman during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, when she was campaigning for the BJP‑led National Democratic Alliance. Lipika Mitra alleged that the Finance Minister made defamatory, derogatory and injurious statements about her and her husband in print and electronic media, including TV news and an online press conference on 17 May 2024, and that these were publicised and repeated through several news channels.
In her petition, filed under the new Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) provisions related to defamation, Lipika Mitra contended that Ms. Sitharaman’s comments deliberately highlighted an alleged marital dispute between her and Somnath Bharti to tarnish his political image. She argued that the sole purpose of these statements was to undermine Somnath Bharti’s electoral prospects from the New Delhi parliamentary constituency, where he was contesting as an India Alliance candidate, and to inflict political damage on both him and herself.
The Rouse Avenue Court, after hearing the arguments, recorded that the allegations did not satisfy the threshold required to invoke criminal liability for defamation. The judge noted that there was nothing substantial in the plea to justify proceeding further and declined to take cognizance of the complaint, effectively dismissing the criminal‑defamation petition.
The case had been under consideration for some time. The court had reserved its order on 19 March 2026 and had earlier issued a notice to Sitharaman in May 2025, directing her to respond to the allegations. Despite the politically charged context and the complainant’s claims of being personally and emotionally hurt, the judiciary found that the matter did not meet the legal standard for a criminal‑defamation trial.
Somnath Bharti, a former AAP MLA, was the party’s Lok Sabha candidate from the New Delhi seat in the 2024 polls. The defamation case had attracted attention not only for its content but also because of the unusual circumstance that Somnath Bharti, himself an advocate and the husband of the complainant, was representing Lipika Mitra in the proceedings.
The court had earlier rejected Sitharaman’s separate application seeking to bar Somnath Bharti from appearing as his wife’s lawyer, holding that a spouse‑lawyer is not automatically barred from representing a family member.
With the dismissal of this criminal‑defamation petition, the Finance Minister has obtained a significant legal reprieve, even though the political controversy around the statements and the underlying matrimonial‑discord narrative may continue informally in public discourse.
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Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar
