Arun Jaitley has filed a defamation suit against Arvind Kejriwal and other AAP leaders (File)

Union Minister Arun Jaitley has opposed Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's plea in the Delhi High Court seeking summoning of the minutes of meetings of the Delhi and District Cricket Association or DDCA held from 1999 to 2014. Mr Kejriwal moved the fresh plea in a defamation suit filed by Mr Jaitley against him and five other Aam Aadmi Party leaders, seeking Rs 10 crore damages for alleged "defamatory" allegations against the union minister during his tenure as president of the DDCA.Mr Jaitley, 64, replying to Registrar Pankaj Gupta of the Delhi High Court, said Mr Kejriwal's application should be dismissed as he has been trying to delay the proceedings in the lawsuit by filing "frivolous" pleas, including the current one.Mr Jaitley has said the fresh plea was "not only a dilatory tactic but clearly a roving and fishing expedition".Mr Kejriwal has sought summoning of the minutes of the meetings held by the general body and the executive committee or board of directors of the DDCA between 1999 and 2014. Mr Jaitley was the DDCA president from 2000 to 2013.Mr Kejriwal in his application filed through advocate Anupam Srivastava has said he wished to cross-examine Mr Jaitley in the suit, whose hearing saw high drama when his former counsel Ram Jethmalani used some "objectionable and scandalous" words against the senior BJP leader.Mr Jethmalani, who has now stopped representing Mr Kejriwal in the case, recently wrote letters alleging that those words were spoken at the instruction of the chief minister and his former client had hurled worse abuses against Mr Jaitely in their meetings.Mr Jaitley, in his reply filed through advocate Manik Dogra, and said the law provided that if Mr Kejriwal wanted to summon a witness or the records, he must mention them in his list of witnesses.

The list of witnesses was required to be filed within 15 days after the court framed issues to be decided in the suit.Besides Mr Kejriwal, the five other accused are AAP leaders Raghav Chadha, Kumar Vishwas, Ashutosh, Sanjay Singh and Deepak Bajpai.