The Delhi High Court on Tuesday summoned former Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, his son Aditya Thackeray, and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut on a defamation suit filed by MP Rahul Ramesh Shewale. Shewale has accused them of levelling frivolous corruption allegations against him and the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena faction.

Justice Prateek Jalan admitted the suit and issued summons to the three individuals.

As part of the hearing, the court also directed Google, Twitter, Uddhav, Aditya, and Raut to file their written statements within 30 days on the plea seeking removal of the alleged defamatory content from social media platforms. The matter has been posted for further hearing on April 17.

Shewale was represented by senior advocates Rajiv Nayar and Arvind Verma and lawyers Chirag Shah and Utsav Trivedi.

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Nayar apprised the court about the allegations and prayed to the court to pass an injunction order to restrain the defendants from making any further defamatory allegations. However, Justice Jalan said that an order will be passed only after having the response of parties.

The court clarified that it does not wish to give a prima facie finding at the stage of issuance of summons and wants to give an opportunity to the defendants to respond to the allegations.

According to a PTI report, Sanjay Raut has claimed that a "deal of Rs 2000 crore" has taken place so far to "purchase" the Shiv Sena party name and its bow and arrow symbol.

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