Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal leaves from Patiala House Courts after a hearing of the defamation case filed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley against him and five other AAP leaders, in New Delhi on Thursday. (Source: PTI) Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal leaves from Patiala House Courts after a hearing of the defamation case filed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley against him and five other AAP leaders, in New Delhi on Thursday. (Source: PTI)

A Delhi court Thursday granted bail to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and five AAP leaders in the criminal defamation case filed by Union Finance Minister and BJP leader Arun Jaitley. While the court proceeding barely lasted for 15 minutes, the run-up to the hearing at 2.30 pm — attended by Kejriwal, AAP leaders and Jaitley — saw supporters of both parties raising slogans and eventually clashing with each other outside the Patiala House Courts Complex.

The clash, at gate no. 2, took place in spite of massive police presence and led to 30 people being detained. They were released later.

While Kejriwal came to the courtroom with several lawyers and supporters in tow, Jaitley, who arrived three minutes after the chief minister, was accompanied by BJP leaders, including Vijender Gupta and Ramesh Bidhuri. The AAP leaders — Ashutosh, Sanjay Singh, Kumar Vishwas, Raghav Chadha and Deepak Bajpai — were escorted by security personnel. Mediapersons were not allowed to enter the courtroom.

The bail was granted by Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sumit Dass, who said the offences were bailable. He then asked Kejriwal and the AAP leaders to furnish a personal bond of Rs 20,000. Kejriwal’s lawyer advocate R K Wadhwa told the court that they had not been provided with documents pertaining to the case. The judge responded, “… Let another set of copies of documents be supplied to the counsel for all the accused persons.”

The lawyers also got into an argument with police over the restrictions imposed on entry to the courtroom. Even Delhi Bar Association president Sanjeev Nassiar was stopped from entering the courtroom due to security reasons.

The next hearing, for scrutiny of documents and further arguments, will be held on May 19.

As the situation in the court complex returned to normal at about 3 pm, AAP leader Kumar Vishwas told security personnel on his way out, “Aap logon ko humse bahut kasht hua (You guys have had a hard time because of us). Jaitley had filed the case against Kejriwal and the AAP leaders for allegedly issuing false and defamatory statements against him and his family in connection with alleged financial irregularities in the DDCA while he was the president.

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