AAP leader writes to Rajnath Singh about ‘death threat’ in court

Aam Aadmi Party’s national treasurer and spokesperson, Raghav Chadha, wrote to Union home minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday, urging action against those who allegedly issued life threats to AAP leaders, including chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, in open court.

The incident allegedly took place during the hearing of Union finance minister Arun Jaitley’s defamation case against the AAP leaders on Saturday at the Patiala House Court. Jaitley has alleged that the AAP leaders made “false and defamatory” statements in a case involving the Delhi and District Cricket Association, thereby harming his reputation.

“During the course of the proceedings, when a counsel for the accused was addressing the honourable court, all of a sudden, a person... standing with the complainants, who is a senior Union minister, gave a threat to life to the accused, who are all members of the AAP and to their lawyers and also threatened that he will fix them and deal with them outside the court,” reads the letter that Chadha sent to Singh.

Chadha has asked the minister to take “appropriate and necessary action” against the person identified as Vivek Sharma.

“If acts of this nature go unaddressed and people are permitted to make a mockery of the legal process, it portends a very ominous state of affairs for the common resident of the national capital,” added Chadha.

Jaitley’s counsel Sidharth Luthra reiterated how the person who had created a scene was not part of his legal team. “Both the AAP MLA, Madan Lal, and the person in question were standing on our side and they got into an altercation. If somebody happens to stand behind us, on our side of the court, that does not mean anything. He is not a part of our legal team. Also, somebody needs to ask Chadha and Ashutosh about how they raised their voice in court. They yelled at my associates. Their conduct was deplorable,” he said.