Jaitley, Kejriwal move joint plea in HC to settle defamation cases

Team Udayavani, Apr 2, 2018, 3:41 PM IST

New Delhi: A joint plea was today moved by Union Minister Arun Jaitley and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to “settle” their over two-year-old litigation regarding alleged defamatory statements made against the BJP leader after the AAP supremo apologised for his remarks.

The move by Kejriwal comes as no surprise as he has already apologised to several others, who had filed defamation suits and complaints against him. The joint application was mentioned before Justice Manmohan by advocates Manik Dogra and Anupam Srivastava, who appeared for Jaitley and Kejriwal, respectively.

The court agreed to list the matter for hearing before the appropriate bench tomorrow if no technical objection is raised by the registry. Jaitley had in December 2015 filed a Rs 10 crore defamation suit against Kejriwal and five other AAP leaders– Raghav Chadha, Kumar Vishwas, Sanjay Singh, Ashutosh and Deepak Bajpai.

They had alleged financial irregularities in the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) when Jaitley was its president. The BJP leader had denied all these allegations. He had also filed a separate Rs 10 crore defamation case against Kejriwal after his then lawyer, Ram Jethmalani, had used objectionable words against Jaitley during his cross-examination in the first suit.

According to the joint application, apart from Kejriwal, other AAP leaders — Chadha, Singh, Ashutosh and Bajpai — have “unequivocally” apologised for their statements against Jaitley in connection with irregularities in DDCA. Vishwas has not yet tendered an apology and therefore, the proceedings shall continue against him.

Kejriwal also apologised for Jethmalani’s use of objectionable words against Jaitley during his cross-examination. On February 20, Kejriwal had concluded his cross-examination of Jaitley in the first defamation suit. The proceedings in the cross-examination were termed by the high court as “malicious” and “a sheer mockery”.

The cross-examination of Jaitley by Kejriwal, which had begun in March 2017, ended on February 20 after more than 300 questions were put to the union minister over around 11 days. The proceedings had also witnessed the high court raising serious objections against the manner in which questions were being put to the BJP leader.