Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and five other Aam Aadmi Party leaders were on Wednesday summoned as accused by a New Delhi court in a criminal defamation complaint filed against them by Union Finance minister Arun Jaitley and asked to appear before it on April seven.
Besides Kejriwal, Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sumit Dass also summoned Kumar Vishwas, Ashutosh, Sanjay Singh, Raghav Chadha and Deepak Bajpai to appear before the court.
The court has summoned them for the alleged offences under sections 500(criminal defamation) and 34(common intention) of the IPC. “I am summoning Arvind Kejriwal, Kumar Vishwas, Ashutosh, Sanjay Singh, Raghav Chadha and Deepak Bajpai for April 7,” the judge said while pronouncing the order.
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 syphoned off money from DDCA for his own benefit.
During recording of his statement, Jaitley had claimed that Kejriwal, Vishwas, Ashutosh, Singh, Chadha and 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.
(Feature Image Source: PTI)