Jaitley, Kejriwal move court to settle defamation case

New Delhi : A joint plea by Union Minister Arun Jaitley and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was moved before a Delhi court on Monday seeking to settle the criminal defamation case filed by the former against the AAP convenor in the DDCA row after the latter tendered an apology.

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal said the court will take up the application, filed by Jaitley and Kejriwal through their respective counsels, on Tuesday.

“Each of the accused (Kejriwal, Sanjay Singh, Raghav Chadha, Ashutosh and Deepak Bajpai) have unequivocally withdrawn all the allegations made by them in print, electronic or social media against the complainant and his family members. Further they have offered their sincere apology to the complainant and his family members for any harm caused to the complainant’s reputation as a consequence of the allegation made by the said accused.

“The complainant has accepted the apology tendered by the accused and in view thereof does not wish to proceed with the aforementioned complaint against the said accused,” the application said.

The complaint is currently at the stage of examination of the complainant after the court framed the charges against the accused on March 25 last year.

The move by Kejriwal comes as no surprise as he has already apologised to some others, including Union Minister Nitin Gadkari and Kapil Sibal’s lawyer son Amit, who had filed defamation suits and complaints against him. Kejriwal was acquitted in the cases filed by both Gadkari and Amit Sibal.

Earlier in the day, the two leaders had moved the Delhi High Court jointly 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.

Jaitley had accused Kejriwal and other AAP leaders — Kumar Viswas, Sanjay Singh, Raghav Chadha, Ashutosh and Deepak Bajpai — of making a series of “false, scandalous and defamatory” allegations against him, claiming it had adversely affected his reputation.

Meanwhile, AAP leader Kumar Vishwas will not apologise to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, his close aide said, even as his party colleagues expressed regret for their comments against the BJP leader.

 “He (Vishwas) will not apologise and pursue the cases that have been filed against him,” his aide Prabudh Kumar said.

After Kejriwal started issuing apologies for the remarks made by him against his political opponents last month, Vishwas had said that he would contest the defamation cases filed against him.