The Delhi High Court on Friday came down heavily on Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for questioning the decision passed by a single judge to expedite the hearing in the ongoing defamation case filed by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley against him.

The matter pertains to a Rs 10 crore defamation suit filed by Union Minister Arun Jaitley against Kejriwal and five other AAP leaders. A bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Harishankar also rapped AAP leader Ashutosh for filing the appeal against a July 26 order of the single judge stating that they had to answer to the Supreme Court for any unnecessary delay in trials.

"We are duty-bound to conduct a trial in an expeditious manner. The single judge cannot be faulted for ensuring a speedy trial," the bench said, adding that this applied to every matter being filed in the court.

"We are hearing for the first time that a party is aggrieved on expeditious trial of a matter because it will conclude," it added.

The court on July 26 had directed the joint registrar to expedite the recording of evidence in the civil defamation suit while disposing of an application filed by Jaitley. Meanwhile, the judges also asked the counsels for Kejriwal to refrain from giving such advice to their clients on the issue of the application.

Moved on Friday, the application stated that the single judge had erred in passing the order as all the applications are to be first placed in front of the joint registrar and no order in this case was passed by the JR.

"The single judge has failed to appreciate that any interference in ingoing recording of evidence is a violation of Rule 3. The judge further failed to appreciate that the Joint Registrar is a delegate of the High Court and not of any individual judge," the application read. It further demanded the setting aside of the order by the judge passed on July 26.