Bhopal court issues arrest warrant against Uma Bharti

Senior Correspondent

NewsBits.in

Bhopal: The Bhopal chief judicial magistrate (CJM) court on Thursday issues a bailable warrant against union water resources minister Uma Bharti in the defamation case filed by Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh.

The CJM Bhu Bhaskar Yadav issued the arrest warrant as Uma Bharti failed to appear in the court despite repeated summons. Digvijaya Singh, ex-chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, has already given his statement in the court. Bharti has been repeatedly summoned to record her statement.

Digvijaya Singh filed the defamation suit against Uma Bharti after she claimed during 2003 election campaign that Singh was involved in scam of Rs 15,000 crore in his tenure as chief minister of MP.

The case has been running since more than a decade and in March this year, the lawyer of Uma Bharti, Harish Mehta had filed an application for settlement between his client and Digvijaya Singh in CJM court. However, the settlement did not come through.

After this Singh recorded his statements in the court, while Uma Bharti has failed to appear. Digvijaya Singh has maintained that he would retract the case only after Bharti apologized to him for the ‘baseless allegations’ in the court. He has said that the union minister would never be able to prove corruption of even Rs 15 against him.