Jaitley withdraws defamation cases against CM Kejriwal, four others

NEWDELHI:A day after Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and four of his colleagues apologised to Union finance minister Arun Jaitley for accusing him of corruption during his tenure as the head of Delhi District and Cricket Association, the Delhi High Court as well as a city court on Tuesday accepted their joint application to end the defamation litigation.

Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw disposed the case against Kejriwal and four other AAP leaders — Sanjay Singh, Raghav Chaddha, Ashutosh and Deepak Bajpai — after they tendered their apology to Jaitley through individual letters on Sunday. However, the court said that the proceedings against Kumar Vishwas, one of the founding members of the AAP, will continue as he had refused to tender an apology to Jaitley. Jaitley’s counsel, senior advocate Rajiv Nayyar, informed the court that the parties had reached a settlement in the event of apology tendered by the CM .

Since no one appeared for Vishwas in Tuesday’s hearing, the court directed Jaitley’s counsel to inform him (Vishwas) about the proceedings and inform him about the next hearing on April 26. Earlier, Justice Manmohan also disposed of the second defamation case against Kejriwal on the same lines after the apology. The second defamation case was slapped by the BJP leader on the Delhi CM after his counsel, senior advocate Ram Jethmalani, had used provocative remarks for Jaitley during cross examination. However, this charge has been refuted by Kejriwal.

A single-judge bench decreed the suit on the condition that both parties did not wish to pursue the case further. “You are bound by your statement to not pursue the case further,” the court said. Meanwhile, litigation also came to an end in the criminal defamation case which was ongoing at a city court here after additional chief metropolitan magistrate Samar Vishal acquitted Kejriwal and others in the case. The court noted that the Union minister does not wish to pursue the case and wants to withdraw the complaint against the AAP leaders as they have tendered their apology.