NEW DELHI, AUGUST 21: Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal must stand trial for criminal defamation after the Supreme Court threw out his plea to quash a long-running legal complaint. The apex court’s decisive ruling on Friday solidifies an earlier October 2025 judgement from the Punjab and Haryana High Court, which kept the case alive alongside a March 2020 magistrate summoning order.
The legal jeopardy centers on remarks Badal made during the January 2017 Punjab election cycle while serving as the state’s deputy chief minister. Badal claimed that the religious group Akhand Kirtani Jatha served as an active political cover for the terrorist entity Babbar Khalsa International. The remarks gained heavy traction in print media and at various campaign rallies, triggering an immediate legal backlash from the group’s leadership.
Appearing before Justices Dipankar Datta and Sheel Nagu, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal tried to distance his client from a direct personal attack. Sibal stated that Badal had not said that the complainant was the spokesperson of the organisation. Addressing the individual’s legal standing to file the case altogether, Sibal added, “He says he is the spokesperson. We don’t know who has authorised him.”
The justices remained unconvinced by the defense’s attempts to pick apart the complainant’s authority, asking Sibal, “We have read this order. What is alleged against you? You say that this is a terrorist organisation and this complainant is the spokesperson of the other organisation which is the political front…”
The baseline dispute intensified originally when the then Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal visited the home of the Akhand Kirtani Jatha’s chief spokesperson. Badal’s subsequent public statements linking the host’s organisation to terrorism led the spokesperson to file a criminal defamation case in his individual capacity. Lower courts previously ruled that the trial must be evaluated purely on its own merits, a stance the Supreme Court has now left completely uninterrupted.
