A Delhi court on Thursday granted bail to chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and five other AAP leaders in connection with a criminal defamation case filed against them by Union finance minister Arun Jait
A Delhi court on Thursday granted bail to chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and five other AAP leaders in connection with a criminal defamation case filed against them by Union finance minister Arun Jaitley in the wake of the DDCA controversy.
The court granted bail to Mr Kejriwal as well as Kumar Vishwas, Ashutosh, Sanjay Singh, Raghav Chadha and Deepak Bajpayee after they appeared in the court following last month’s summons. The court asked them to furnish a bail bond of Rs 20,000 and a surety of like amount. Gopal Mohan, an adviser to Mr Kejriwal, stood his surety.
Delhi’s food and supplies minister Imran Hussain stood surety for Ashutosh, Uttam Nagar legislator Naresh Balyan for Sanjay Singh, Laxmi Nagar MLA Nitin Tyagi for Kumar Vishwas, Burari MLA Sanjeev Jha for Mr Chadha and Mehrauli MLA Naresh Yadav stood surety for Mr Bajpayee. Mr Jaitley was also present in the courtroom along with other BJP leaders and his counsel.
R.K. Wadhwa and C.L. Gupta, the counsel appearing for Mr Kejriwal, told the court that they have not been supplied with the copy of entire set of documents of the complaint.
The court directed the complainant to supply the documents to the accused and fixed May 19 as next date of hearing.
Security was beefed up in the Patiala House courts since morning. The entry to court room 4, where hearing was scheduled to take place, was restricted after lunch and only the accused, those giving sureties, Mr Jaitley, the lawyers appearing in the matter and six journalists were allowed to enter the room.
A scuffle took place between BJP and AAP supporters gathered outside Gate Number 2 of the Patiala House courts while they were shouting slogans against one another.
Mr Jaitley told the court on January 5 that the AAP leaders had given “false and defamatory” statements against him in the case involving the Delhi and District Cricket Association, thereby harming his reputation. He said the AAP leaders made the statements with a view to deflect attention from a CBI probe against a civil servant working with Mr Kejriwal. He had urged the court to initiate proceedings against Mr Kejriwal and others on the charge of defaming him. The AAP leaders had alleged corruption in the DDCA, which Mr Jaitley headed for 13 years until 2013.
