HC asks Kejriwal, AAP leaders to respond in defamation case

The Delhi high court on Tuesday sought response of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and five other Aam Aadmi Party leaders on a civil defamation suit filed against them by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

The joint registrar issued notices to Kejriwal and other AAP leaders -- Kumar Vishwas, Ashutosh, Sanjay Singh, Raghav Chadha and Deepak Bajpai -- on the suit by Jaitley seeking Rs 10 crore in damages for issuing ‘false and defamatory statements against him and his family members’.

"Issue notices to the defendants (AAP leaders). Written statements by the defendants must be filed within three weeks. Thereafter, in two weeks’ time, the plaintiff (Jaitley) will file replication," the JR said.

The court also asked Kejriwal and other leaders of his party to file original documents related to the allegations levelled in the suit against them in one week.

The JR fixed the matter for February 5, 2016 for admission/denial of documents.

While Kejriwal and Vishwas were not present in the high court, Ashutosh, Singh, Chadha and Bajpai attended the proceedings.

During the hearing, senior advocates Pratibha M Singh, Rajiv Nayar, Sandeep Sethi and advocate Anil Soni, appearing for Jaitley, told the JR that 'malicious and defamatory' campaign was causing irreversible damage to him.

'All defendants individually and collectively have made themselves liable to compensate the plaintiff for a sum of Rs 10 crore,' they said, appealing to the court to pass a decree of damages against the defendants.

Meanwhile, AAP leaders, represented by senior advocate H S Phoolka, filed a caveat in the defamation suit and urged the court to expedite the hearing in the matter.

In his suit, Jaitley said Kejriwal and other AAP leaders, with common intention, have from December 15 'undertaken a false, malicious and defamatory campaign against him and his family members for political mileage'.

It was done to deflect issues from an unrelated search during an investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation of a bureaucrat in the secretariat of the Delhi government, based on a complaint by a third party, he said.

The suit referred to some of the allegations made by AAP leaders in press conferences, including the one in which it was claimed that the CBI raided the office looking for Jaitley's 'tax scam files' and that there was corruption worth several hundred crores under Jaitley’s tenure as the DDCA president.

Jaitley said such statements have been made orally and through Twitter handle of the AAP leaders which have been carried by electronic and print media from December 15 to December 20.

Referring to the allegation that Rs 57 crore were siphoned off in the reconstruction of Ferozeshah Kotla stadium, Jaitley said this was one of the stadiums with modern facilities built in India for a most economical amount of Rs 114 crore.

Jaitley said on the contrary, the mere renovation of Jawaharlal Nehru stadium for the 2010 Commonwealth Games had cost the government Rs 900 crore and the renovation of Dhyanchand stadium cost Rs 600 crore.

'The plaintiff has always remained concerned about his reputation and credibility and has always conducted himself with utmost probity and integrity in each of his actions. Even when the plaintiff was discharging functions as the president of DDCA, he had never even imagined of taking any pecuniary advantage for himself or any of his family,' he said in his suit. 

'It is available on the records of the DDCA that what to talk of imagining taking of any pecuniary benefit, throughout his tenure as the president of DDCA, the plaintiff has not even taken legitimate reimbursement of his expenses from the DDCA,' Jaitley said in his suit.

He further said, 'By all acts of omissions and commissions by the defendants, including making false, baseless, scandalous, malicious statements/allegations against the plaintiff, they have made themselves liable individually and collectively for the irreversible and unquantifiable damage caused to the plaintiff.'