Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal gets bail in defamation case filed by Arun Jaitley

The court fixed next date of hearing for April 19 for framing of charges.

A Delhi court on Thursday granted bail to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and 5 other Aam Aadmi Party leaders in a criminal defamation case filed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sumit Dass granted relief to Kejriwal and AAP leaders Ashutosh, Sanjay Singh, Kumar Vishwas, Raghav Chadha and Deepak Bajpai, on a personal bond of Rs 20,000 each with one surety of like amount.

The court fixed next date of hearing for April 19 for framing of charges.

Ahead of the hearing, supporters of both the leaders clashed outside the court premises. BJP supporters were heard chanting ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’.

On January 5, Jaitley had appeared in the court and said that Kejriwal and five AAP leaders had made ‘false and defamatory’ statements. He had rejected the charge that he had siphoned off money from DDCA for his own benefit.

During recording of his statement, Jaitley had claimed that Kejriwal and AAP leaders Kumar Vishwas, Ashutosh, Sanjay Singh, Raghav Chadha and Deepak Bajpai, had given statements even after the complaint was filed against them which had damaged his reputation.

The Finance Minister had said that their statements against him and his family members lowered his dignity in the eyes of the public at large. He had also referred to the Twitter and Facebook posts of these six leaders.

Jaitley had said Kejriwal’s statement that he received money when the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium was constructed during his tenure as the DDCA Chief, was false as Board of Directors had constituted a committee to supervise the work and he was not a member of this supervisory committee.

Jaitley had on December 21, 2015 filed the criminal defamation case against them and sought their prosecution for offences that entail a punishment of upto two years in jail.