Tells CM his conduct is not reasonable, cautions his counsels

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday said Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was “not being reasonable” in the civil defamation case against him by Union Minister Arun Jaitley, and cautioned his lawyers over their conduct.

“You (defendant 1 - Kejriwal) are not being reasonable. Your conduct is not reasonable. It cannot be like this. We cannot have proceedings go on in this manner. Otherwise tomorrow we will have fist fight in court. Whole system is on the brink of collapse," Justice Manmohan said.

"I am cautioning you. Give good advice," the judge said to the lawyer representing Mr. Kejriwal.

Corruption allegations

The observations by the court came on an application moved by Mr. Jaitley to expedite the recording of evidence in an orderly and fair manner in a ₹10-crore defamation suit filed by him against Mr. Kejriwal and five other AAP leaders for allegations of corruption made by them against the BJP leader.

When the application came up for hearing, senior advocate Rajiv Nayar, appearing for Mr. Jaitley, said the Union Minister has been compelled to move the plea “as every hearing before the Joint Registrar cannot prompt a fresh defamation case”.

Advocate Ramesh Singh, appearing for Mr. Kejriwal, sought time to file his reply to the application and, thereafter, the court listed the matter for further hearing on July 24.

Objectionable word

The application, filed through advocate Manik Dogra, was moved subsequent to the use of an objectionable word against Mr. Jaitley by the Chief Minister's lawyer Ram Jethmalani during the Union Minister's cross examination in the suit.

The use of the objectionable word had led to Mr. Jaitley filing another ₹10-crore defamation suit against Mr. Kejriwal.

The application for expedited hearing claims that “numerous irrelevant and scandalous questions have been asked during the cross examination” of the Union minister and that “abusive and defamatory statements have been made” on the instructions of Mr. Kejriwal.

The application further contends that the intention of the defendants (Mr. Kejriwal and others) was to “delay the conclusion of recording of evidence by posing questions which are designed to be insulting and annoying”.

DDCA case

In the first defamation case, besides Mr. Kejriwal, the five other accused are AAP leaders Raghav Chadha, Kumar Vishwas, Ashutosh, Sanjay Singh and Deepak Bajpai.

They had accused the BJP leader of corruption as the president of the DDCA, a post he had held from 2000 to 2013.