HC rejects Kejriwal plea to end criminal case filed by Jaitley
NEW DELHI: Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal suffered a setback on Wednesday as the high court dismissed his plea to stay proceedings in a criminal defamation case that Union finance minister Arun Jaitley has filed against him.
That means Kejriwal will have to simultaneously defend himself at the Delhi high court, where a civil defamation suit is pending against him, and the criminal defamation case at a lower court.
The finance minister sued Kejriwal and five leaders of his Aam Aadmi Party in both courts for allegedly making a false statement against him over a controversy in the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA), which Jaitley headed for more than a decade.
The Union minister alleged that Kejriwal, Kumar Vishwas, Ashutosh, Sanjay Singh, Raghav Chadha and Deepak Bajpai made defamatory attacks on him as a “counter-blast to a CBI search of a bureaucrat” in the Delhi secretariat on December 15 last year.
Kejriwal pleaded that the trial court proceedings should be stayed till the high court decides on the civil defamation case.
But Justice PS Teji dismissed his appeal, saying both cases are “separate and independent proceedings and they can go side by side”.
This is the second time Kejriwal’s plea to stay the criminal defamation case was turned down. The trial court dismissed his plea this May to stay the case. The AAP leader moved the high court challenging the lower court order.
The lower court is likely hear the case on October 24.
Jaitley’s counsel called the Delhi chief minister’s petition a “dilatory tactic with a view to delay the proceedings in the complaint case”.