New Delhi, Jan 12 (India Today) : The ongoing defamation war between Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley took an ugly turn today with Kejriwal describing him as a man without public character.
In reply to Jaitley's defamation suit filed against him, Kejriwal told the court, "The plaintiff's claim that he enjoys and in fact possesses high public character is a totally frivolous and unsustainable claim. No injury of any kind has been caused to the plaintiff's reputation which he claims. This is not a suit for injury to his private character, but to his public character, if at all."
"This defendant denies that he has any reputation of this kind to protect. In a democracy this reputation can only be what can be proved to be the known reaction, response and manifestation of the people's attitude to the plaintiff. The last time he contested the election to the Lok Sabha was from Amritsar as a BJP candidate in 2014. Despite the success of the BJP this plaintiff lost by a margin of more than 1,00,000 (a lac) votes. Jaitley a man without public character. Indian democracy has never accepted his claim of public character," he added.
Jaitley has filed a criminal defamation suit against Kejriwal and five other AAP leaders after they alleged that the minister was involved in corruption during his 13-year stint as chief of Delhi cricket body - DDCA. Jaitley has demanded Rs 10 crore in damages from Kejriwal and AAP.
On January 5, Jaitley had told the Patiala House court that Kejriwal and five other AAP men had given false and defamatory statements against him and his family members.
"Statements have been made to deflect attention from CBI probe against a particular person working with Kejriwal," Jaitley told the court while referring to CBI raids on Kejriwal's principal secretary Rajender Kumar in December, 2015.
"They defamed me on Twitter, Facebook and social media. Raghav Chadha by retweeting tweets of Arvind Kejriwal and others has defamed my image in public," he had said.