AAP leaders get 3 weeks to respond to civil defamation suit filed by Jaitley, matter to be heard on Feb 5

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday granted three weeks time to six Aam Admi Party leaders including Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to respond to the defamation case filed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. The matter has now been listed for hearing on February 5, 2016.

On Monday, Jaitley had filed a civil as well as a criminal defamation case against AAP leaders for false statements against him and his family members.

Appearing for AAP leaders, lawyer HS Phoolka said, "We wanted the matter to be expidited. We have taken a short time, three weeks, to file our written statement. Court granted Jaitley two weeks to file his reply to ours. February 5 has been fixed for the admission and denial of documents by both parties."

Hitting out at AAP, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said, "Those who have levied these false allegations against Arun Jaitley have no idea who Jaitley is! He is an inspiration to all of us. Whoever made these allegations will be exposed by this."

Accusing Jaitley of ignoring corruption during his tenure as DDCA president, AAP spokesperson Ashutosh said, "The whole world should know that Jaitley has overlooked corruption and now he is trying to paint himself as a saint. The fact is, he is not answering questions. I asked him five questions that he hasn't answered yet. Those questions are related to his corruption and he must answer them. We'll take this to the people's court and they'll decide about it also."

Jaitley had filed both civil and criminal defamation cases against Kejriwal and five other AAP leaders for allegedly defaming him and sought Rs 10 crore in damages and their prosecution for offences that entails a punishment of upto two years in jail.

A week after a CBI raid on the Chief Minister's secretariat against his principal secretary that triggered allegations by AAP against Jaitley in the affairs of the Delh's cricket body DDCA, the minister took the legal recourse saying the AAP leaders' "malicious and defamatory" campaign was causing irreversible damage to him.

The others who have been named in both the petitions are Kumar Vishwas, Ashutosh, Sanjay Singh, Raghav Chadha and Deepak Bajpai.

The complaint was filed under various sections of the IPC including 499 (defamation), 500 (punishment), 501 and 502 (printing and sale of defamatory matter).