Delhi High Court slaps Arvind Kejriwal with Rs 5,000 fine in Arun Jaitley defamation case

The Delhi High Court has imposed a fine of 5,000 rupees as the cost on Arvind Kejriwal over the delay in filing his reply to a fresh Rs 100 million defamation suit filed by Union minister Arun Jaitley.

The case was filed over the use of an 'objectionable word' allegedly by the Delhi Chief Minister's former lawyer, according to the NDTV news.

The fine was imposed after Jaitley's counsel informed the court that the chief minister's written statement to the suit was filed beyond the time of two weeks granted by this court on July 26.

The counsel further submitted that these were delaying tactics on the part of the chief minister, the report said.

Joint Registrar of the court directed Kejriwal, who was earlier slapped with Rs 10,000 as cost, to deposit fresh fine amount of Rs 5,000 to the 'Army Welfare Fund Battle Casualties'.

Arun Jaitley. File Photo. Reuters

Advocate Rishikesh Kumar, appearing for Kejriwal, urged the court to condone the delay on the ground that "the written statement could not be filed due to certain technical objections raised on two occasions by the High Court Registry."

The court has now fixed the matter for Oct 12.

Meanwhile, Kejriwal, in his reply to the defamation suit, filed through advocate Anupam Srivastava submitted that the union minister Arun Jaitley's suit "is liable to be dismissed as no civil action for damages for slander lies for any statement in pleadings or during the conduct of a suit against a party or a witness in it."

The High Court on May 23 sought response of Kejriwal on why defamation proceedings should not be initiated against him.

Jaitley had filed the second defamation suit after Kejriwal's then lawyer Ram Jethmalani allegedly "abused" him in open court during proceedings of another defamation suit he had filed against the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief and five other party functionaries.