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The designated court in New Delhi on Wednesday refused to hear a plea from the counsel of former chief of Indian Army, General VK Singh, who has been named as the prime respondent in a defamation case filed by Lt. Gen. (retired) Tejinder Singh. General (retired) V K Singh’s counsel had sought the recall of a file from the Ministry of Defence, which incidentally was perused by the judge on an earlier occasion for certain notings and observations. However, when the counsel of the former army chief again submitted the plea, the judge turned it down. Lt. Gen. (retired) Tejinder Singh who has filed the defamation case informed this to the media outside the courts complex. “During the previous hearing, the honourable judge had called for a file from the MoD (Ministry of Defence), which he had inspected, based on which he had passed the orders for summoning etc. Today, the council for the accused requested that the file should be recalled and should be examined once again. Judge has refused the request of the counsel for the accused to recall the file,” said Lt. Gen. (retired) Tejinder Singh. Earlier on July 20, the court had granted bail to General (retired) V K Singh and four others, in the defamation case. Besides General Singh, Tejinder Singh had also named Vice-Chief of Army Staff, S K Singh, Lt. Gen. B. S. Thakur (Director-General of Military Intelligence), Major General S.L. Narasimhan (Additional Director-General of Public Information) and Lieutenant Colonel Hitten Sawhney, accusing them of misusing their official positions, power and authority to level false charges against him. On March 5 this year, the Indian Army in an official statement had said that retired Lieutenant General (retired) Tejinder Singh, who had allegedly benefited from the Adarsh Housing scam, was not only planting reports in the media but had even tried to bribe the Army Chief to clear a file relating to purchase of a tranche of 600 sub-standard Tatra trucks. On its part, the court had observed that it would pass an order only after going through the file relating to the publication of the Army Headquarters March 5 press release. The court had earlier said it was ‘prima facie’ satisfied that the March 5 press release was defamatory, as serious allegation of ‘bribery’ was made against Tejinder Singh, despite his long and distinguished service in the army.

Delhi court rejects plea of former army chief in defamation case