HC accepts Vishwas apology

The Delhi High Court on Monday accepted the apology tendered by dissident Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Kumar Vishwas for levelling allegations against Union Minister Arun Jaitley.

Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw noted that Mr. Vishwas, in a letter submitted to the court, has without any reservation, unequivocally withdrawn all the allegations levelled against the BJP leader.

Suit disposed of

The court disposed of the suit in which Mr. Vishwas was the only one against whom the defamation suit remained after Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and four other AAP leaders -- Raghav Chadha, Sanjay Singh, Ashutosh and Deepak Bajpai -- had tendered unequivocal apology to Mr. Jaitley in the ₹10 crore defamation suit filed against them by the Union Minister.

Mr. Vishwas had earlier told the court that before making any statement or apology to Mr. Jaitley, he wanted to know if Mr. Kejriwal lied when he said his allegations against the Union Minister were based on documents.

‘CM targeted’

AAP spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj said: “Sadly, he [Mr. Vishwas] is targeting the Chief Minister for being denied Rajya Sabha seat.”

“Party had relied on documents of DDCA in public domain and those provided by formers players of Indian Cricket team. AAP as a party had consciously decided not to exhaust its limited resources on multiple legal battles,” Mr. Bharadwaj said.

“Almost 10,000 pages of documentary evidence related to DDCA were filed by AAP leaders in the HC. If Mr. Vishwas in his personal capacity wants to peruse the case against Mr. Jaitely, the same documents can be easily obtained,” Mr. Bharadwaj also said.

Defamation suit

Mr. Jaitley had lodged a ₹10 crore defamation suit in December 2015 against Mr. Kejriwal and the five AAP leaders after they had alleged financial irregularities in the DDCA when the Union Minister was its president. The BJP leader had denied all the allegations.

The Union Minister and the CM had last month settled all their defamation suits, which were pending in the High Court and a local court in the Capital after accepting the apology tendered by Mr. Kejriwal, Mr. Chadha, Mr. Singh, Mr. Ashutosh and Mr. Bajpai.