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

A joint plea was on Monday 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 Mr. 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.

Mr. Jaitley had in December 2015 filed a ₹ 10 crore defamation suit against Mr. 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 Mr. Jaitley was its president. The BJP leader had denied all these allegations.

He had also filed a separate ₹ 10 crore defamation case against Mr. Kejriwal after his then lawyer, Ram Jethmalani, had used objectionable words against Mr. Jaitley during his cross-examination in the first suit.

According to the joint application, apart from Mr. Kejriwal, other AAP leaders — Mr. Chadha, Mr. Singh, Mr. Ashutosh and Mr. Bajpai — have “unequivocally” apologised for their statements against Jaitley in connection with irregularities in DDCA.

Mr. Vishwas has not yet tendered an apology and therefore, the proceedings shall continue against him.

Mr. Kejriwal also apologised for Mr. Jethmalani’s use of objectionable words against Mr. Jaitley during his cross-examination.

On February 20, Mr. Kejriwal had concluded his cross-examination of Mr. Jaitley in the first defamation suit.

The proceedings in the cross-examination was termed by the High Court as “malicious” and “a sheer mockery”.

The cross examination of Mr. Jaitley by Mr. 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.