Delhi High Court to issue order in Kejriwal-Jaitley defamation case today

Source – moneycontrol.com

The Delhi High Court is set to deliver its order in the Arvind Kejriwal-Arun Jaitley defamation case on Monday.

The court on Friday had rapped Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for questioning the decision of a judge to expedite hearing of the defamation suit filed by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley against him and five other Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders.

A bench comprising of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar had also pulled up AAP leader Ashutosh for appealing against the order issued on July 26, saying the high court had to answer to the Supreme Court on delay in trials.

The judges had asked CM Kejriwal’s counsel as to why he was filing the appeals. Senior advocate appearing for Kejriwal, Anoop George Chaudhari, was asked, “Don’t you advise your client to bring an end to this case instead of filing such appeals.”

The court on July 26 had ordered the joint registrar to expedite the recording of evidence in the civil defamation case.

Kejriwal’s counsel Chaudhari had contended that a judge could not interfere while proceedings related to recording of evidence had been going in a court of the joint registrar.

Along with CM Kejriwal, five other AAP leaders have been accused in the defamation case – Raghav Chadha, Kumar Vishwas, Ashutosh, Sanjay Singh and Deepak Bajpai.

They had accused the finance minister of corruption in the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA), a body for which he was president from 2000 to 2013.

Jaitley, denying all the allegations levelled against him by the AAP leaders in December 2015, had said that they had made “false and defamatory” statements in the case, thereby harming his reputation.

The AAP leaders had allegedly attacked Jaitley and his family members in various forums and on social media over the alleged irregularities and financial bungling in the DDCA.