A Delhi court discharged Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and suspended BJP MP Kirti Azad on Thursday in a criminal complaint filed against them by the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) and its then Vice-President Chetan Chauhan for allegedly defaming him and the association.

It was first on December 29, 2015, when Kejriwal alleged that one of the DDCA selectors had asked for undue favours from a junior player’s mother. Rather than trying to probe the alleged allegations, DDCA, in retaliation, filed a defamation case against not just the CM but former India all-rounder Kirti Azad for backing the claims of a senior journalist whose wife got this message from the accused selector “to meet him in the evening to get her son picked in the squad”.

DDCA left it to Chauhan, a former India opener, to settle the scores with the two.

But on Thursday, Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal discharged the Chauhan’s case saying“he has no locus to prosecute this complaint any further because he has been relieved of his position as vice-president”.

The judge held that “no case was made out against the two accused persons”.

Further, the judge ruled that there was nothing defamatory said about anyone in particular by the duo.

Azad’s counsel Baljit Dhir told DNA that the court held that “neither the identity of DDCA nor of Chetan Chauhan is established, so as to be relatable to the defamatory words or imputations”.

Reacting to the court order, Azad vowed to file a counter defamation against Chauhan soon. “I will file a case for Rs 5 crores against Chetan Chauhan for trying to harass me in a patently false, malicious and vexatious litigation,” Azad told DNA.