Jaitley hits Kejriwal with new defamation case
Union minister Arun Jaitley filed on Monday a second defamation suit against Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, seeking ₹10 crore in damages for being called names during a hearing in a libel case last week.
Jaitley first accused the Aam Aadmi Party chief and five of his party colleagues of defaming him in 2015. Last week, while crossexamining Jaitley in that case, senior advocate Ram Jethmalani used a term Jaitley found objectionable. Jethmalani had told the court that he used the word against Jaitley during the proceedings on instructions of Kejriwal. However, Anupam Srivastav, advocate on record for Kejriwal, submitted that there was no instruction on the use of the word by the CM.
The court proceedings ended abruptly following heated exchanges between Jaitley’s and Kejriwal ’s lawyers.
Jaitley had warned Jethmalani that he will aggravate the charges against Kejriwal.
The five other accused in the first defamation case are Raghav Chadha, Kumar Vishwas, Ashutosh, Sanjay Singh and Deepak Bajpai. The AAP leaders had accused the BJP leader of corruption as the president of the Delhi & District Cricket Association. Jaitley had denied all the allegations levelled against him by the AAP leaders.
LAST WEEK, WHILE CROSSEXAMINING JAITLEY, ADVOCATE RAM JETHMALANI USED A TERM JAITLEY FOUND OBJECTIONABLE.