The plea of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for summoning the minutes of meetings of the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) held between 1999 and 2014 in a defamation suit filed by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was dismissed by the Delhi High Court on Tuesday.
Joint registrar Pankaj Gupta refused to provide the relief to Kejriwal in a Rs 10 crore defamation suit filed by Jaitley. Kejriwal faces the defamation suit along with five other Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders – Raghav Chadha, Kumar Vishwas, Ashutosh, Sanjay Singh and Deepak Bajpai.
Jaitley was accused of indulging in corruption by the AAP leaders while he was the president of the DDCA from 2000 to 2013.
The application of Kejriwal was opposed by Jaitley during an earlier hearing, saying that the AAP leader had been trying to delay the proceedings by filing “frivolous” pleas, including the present one.
The suit was filed by the BJP leader against the AAP leaders for allegedly levelling “defamatory” charges against him by pointing out alleged irregularities in the DDCA while he was president of the cricket body.
The minutes of the meetings sought by Kejriwal to be summoned included those of the DDCA’s general body, the executive committee or the board of directors held between 1999 and 2014.
After the AAP leader’s former lawyer, senior advocate Ram Jethmalani, used ‘scandalous words’ while cross-examining Jaitley, a separate Rs 10 crore defamation suit was filed by Jaitley which is being faced by Kejriwal.
The court was later told by Kejriwal that there were no instructions from him to Jethmalani to use such words against a Union minister.
In December 2015, all the allegations levelled by the AAP leaders were denied by Jaitley, who filed a civil defamation suit seeking Rs 10 crore as damages from them. He claimed that they had harmed his reputation by making “false and defamatory” statements in a case involving the DDCA.