Thaindian News

New Delhi, May 5 (IANS) A Delhi magistrate Saturday sent to another judge Lt. Gen. (retd) Tejinder Singh’s plea seeking the summoning of army chief Gen. V.K. 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. Gen. Tejinder Singh’s plea Saturday, sent the case file to additional chief metropolitan magistrate at the Patiala House district courts requesting him to pass the order 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 enquiry 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 this present complaint,” he said.

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.

On March 29, he told the court that a press release issued by the army headquarters here March 5 levelled serious allegations against Lt. Gen. Tejinder Singh. He told the court that the media could not be addressed directly by army officers.

Aggarwal said that the press release was for the purpose of defaming the petitioner.

The army could have gone to police for investigation into the alleged bribery instead of issuing the press release, he said.

Tejinder Singh said that the allegation made by the army chief was “absolutely false, ill-founded and concocted”.

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. Gen. S.K. Singh, Director General, Military Intelligence, Lt. Gen. B.S. Thakur, Additional Director General of Public Information Major Gen. S.L. Narsimhan and Directorate General of Public Information staff officer Lt. Col. Hitten Sawhney.