Raghav Chadha Appointed as Chair of Rajya Sabha Petition Committee

Raghav Chadha's New Role in Rajya Sabha

Raghav Chadha, a Rajya Sabha member who recently transitioned from the Aam Aadmi Party to the Bharatiya Janata Party, has been appointed as the new chair of the petition committee in the upper house. Following the reorganization of the committee, Rajya Sabha Chairman C.P. Radhakrishnan nominated ten members to the committee. An official notification from the Rajya Sabha confirmed Chadha's appointment as the committee's chair, effective from May 20.

In addition to Chadha, the committee includes members such as Harsh Mahajan, Ghulam Ali, Shambhu Sharan Patel, Mayank Kumar Nayak, Mastan Rao Yadav Bidha, J.B. Mather Hisham, Subhashish Khuntia, Rangwara Narzari, and Sandosh Kumar P. Furthermore, another notification from the Rajya Sabha Secretariat stated that Dr. Menka Guruswamy has been appointed as a member of the Joint Committee on the Corporate Law (Amendment) Bill, 2026, by the Rajya Sabha Chairman, effective until May 20, 2026.

Meanwhile, the Delhi High Court remarked on Thursday that the distinction between political criticism and defamation is quite subtle. The court questioned Chadha about whether he could be 'sensitive' to posts on social media that criticize his political decisions. Chadha, who recently left the Aam Aadmi Party for the BJP, has filed a lawsuit in the High Court against allegedly malicious and fabricated social media posts, claiming they severely harm his reputation and personal rights.

Senior advocate Rajiv Nair, representing Chadha, argued that some posts contained objectionable content, including one that depicted him as someone willing to sell himself for money. Justice Subramaniam Prasad, while reserving the decision on the request for interim relief to remove such alleged objectionable content, acknowledged that every individual has the right to live with dignity, while also emphasizing that the right to freedom of expression under the Constitution cannot be infringed upon.