The Madhya Pradesh High Court has vacated the interim stay on the execution of an arrest warrant issued against All India Trinamool Congress leader and Member of Parliament Abhishek Banerjee in a criminal defamation case filed by former BJP MLA Akash Vijayvargiya.
The single-judge Bench of Justice Pramod Kumar Agrawal on Wednesday dismissed Banerjee’s petition challenging the warrant and lifted the protection that had been granted by the High Court on November 12, 2025. The Court also directed that a copy of its order be transmitted to the Special MP/MLA Court in Bhopal.
The proceedings arise from a criminal defamation complaint filed by Akash Vijayvargiya in 2021 before the MP/MLA Court, alleging that Banerjee had made defamatory remarks against him while addressing a political rally in Kolkata in November 2020.
According to the complaint, Banerjee had referred to Vijayvargiya as a goon, an allegation which the complainant claimed had harmed his reputation and lowered his standing in public life. The remarks were allegedly made months after Vijayvargiya, then an MLA from Indore, was involved in a widely reported incident in which he was accused of assaulting a municipal corporation employee with a cricket bat.
The Special MP/MLA Court in Bhopal issued an arrest warrant against Banerjee after he failed to appear before it. Banerjee challenged the order before the Madhya Pradesh High Court, contending that he was an elected Member of Parliament and there was no likelihood of his absconding or evading the judicial process. Accepting the plea at the interim stage, the High Court had stayed the execution of the arrest warrant in November 2025.
However, when the matter was taken up for hearing on Wednesday, neither Banerjee nor any counsel appeared before the Court. The Bench noted that no one had appeared on behalf of the petitioner during the initial hearing or even during the pass-over round granted by the Court.
Taking serious note of the continued absence of the petitioner, Justice Agrawal observed that it appeared Banerjee had lost interest in prosecuting the petition. The Court consequently vacated the interim protection granted earlier, dismissed the writ petition, and restored the operation of the arrest warrant issued by the Special MP/MLA Court.
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