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A Delhi Court on Saturday dismissed the criminal defamation case filed by Deputy Chief Minister Parvesh Verma against Aam Aadmi Party leader Saurabh Bhardwaj

Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (ACJM) Neha Mittal of Rouse Avenue Courts rejected the plea which contended that Bharadwaj allegedly insinuated that Verma used his political influence to favor officials of a school involving a sexual assault (POCSO) case involving a three-year-old child.

The judge today refused to take cognisance of the case, observing that the imputations allegedly made by the AAP leader were in the nature of asking questions and did not amount to defamation.

Parvesh Verma had accused Saurabh Bharadwaj of posting "malicious, false and full of lies" statements on social media platforms (including X, Instagram, and Facebook) in May.

The Court had recorded Verma's statement and witness testimonies in July.

In August and September, the court heard arguments regarding the pre-cognizance stage.

It had then restrained Verma and his associates from deleting or altering the specified social media posts and directed platforms like X and Meta to preserve the digital data and server logs.

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