NEW DELHI, April 11 (Xinhua) -- A court in the northeastern Indian state of Assam has issued an arrest warrant against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for failing to appear before it in connection with a defamation case over his tweet on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's academic degrees.
The case was filed by a member of India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party after Kejriwal, also the head of the Indian capital's ruling anti-graft Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), alleged in a tweet in December last year that Modi's academic degrees after class XII were all fake.
Though Kejriwal's lawyer Gurpreet Singh Uppal pleaded with the court that Delhi Chief Minister was busy with local civic polls, judicial magistrate Naba Kumar Deka Baruah went ahead and issued the arrest warrant Monday, officials said Tuesday.
"On perusal of records, it reveals that the accused (Kejriwal) has not appeared before the court on the earlier occasion, on January 30, too, availing adjournment for two months. Considering this, the petition of Gurpreet Singh Uppal is rejected," the court said.
The Delhi Chief Minister has long been raising suspicions over Modi's educational qualifications and demanded that all the Prime Minister's college and university certificates be made public. The Prime Minister's Office has rejected all the claims.
However, the bailable warrant is the latest in a series of legal setbacks that Kejriwal faced over his wild allegations against senior Ministers of the Indian government. He is currently facing trial in a defamation case in a Delhi court, filed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
Jaitley had filed the defamation case as well as another civil suit some two years ago, seeking damages against Kejriwal and four other leaders of his Aam Aadmi Party after they accused him of financial irregularities when he was head of the Delhi Cricket Association between 2000 and 2012.
