The Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed for four weeks the defamation proceedings in a trial court in Gujarat on a complaint filed by Gujarat University against Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and jailed AAP MP Sanjay Singh in connection with a controversy around the academic qualification of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

A bench of Justices B.R. Gavai and Sandeep Mehta, while staying the defamation proceedings to enable Gujarat High Court to deal with the issue, refrained from passing any order on Singh’s plea to transfer the case out of Gujarat to Calcutta or any other place.

Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for the AAP leader, clarified that the plea to transfer the case to Calcutta was submitted as the party did not have any affiliation in Bengal, but said it was up to the top court to decide on the transfer.

“We request the high court to hear the application for stay or at least the prayer for interim relief within four weeks. In the meantime, till the high court decides on granting or rejection of the relief or interim relief, proceedings in the trial court shall remain stayed,” Justice Gavai, heading the bench, said in an order.

The bench passed the order on the special leave petition filed by Singh for staying the December 28 summoning order issued by a trial court in Gujarat in connection with the defamation case filed by the Gujarat varsity against Kejriwal and Singh for allegedly making defamatory statements on April 1 against the institution in connection with Modi’s academic qualification.

Singhvi told the court on Tuesday that the trial court’s order for the production of Singh before it was also erroneous as he was currently in jail in Delhi in connection with a money-laundering case.

According to Singhvi, the trial court ought not to have summoned Singh as the leader’s petition for staying the defamation proceedings was already pending before Gujarat High Court. He feared that if the proceedings were allowed to continue, it would lead to Singh’s disqualification and prevent him from contesting elections.

However, the bench assured Singhvi that it would take care of the issue of disqualification if and when it arose.

Justice Gavai also pointed out that the trial court could not hear the proceedings in the absence of the accused as the AAP MP was in jail.

The bench headed by Justice Gavai had on August 4 last year stayed Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s conviction in the defamation case filed by BJP leader Purnesh Modi over his “Modi surname” remarks, leading to the restoration of Rahul’s Lok Sabha membership.

Gujarat University was aggrieved by social media posts of Kejriwal and Singh questioning its stand in opposing an RTI application for disclosure of details pertaining to Modi’s educational qualifications. The Central Information Commission (CIC) had earlier directed the university to provide the information sought under the RTI Act by Kejriwal.

The university then filed an appeal in Gujarat High Court challenging the CIC direction. The high court on March 31 quashed the direction on the ground that there was no public interest involved in the information sought through the RTI medium and it appeared to be vexatious and politically motivated.

Following this, the AAP leaders posted certain comments on social media decrying the attempt of the varsity to deny the information sought and the logic behind filing an appeal in the high court to withhold the information.

Aggrieved, the varsity filed the criminal defamation case against Kejriwal and Singh, accusing the two of defaming the institution and lowering its reputation by attributing motives to it for not disclosing the information sought.