Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Ashutosh today moved Delhi High Court opposing fresh allegations made by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in a defamation case against him and other party leaders to which they have been asked to respond.
The matter came up before a bench of justices Badar Durrez Ahmed and R K Gauba but Justice Ahmed recused from hearing it due to some undisclosed reason.
The AAP leader has challenged a single judge’s April 29 order by which Jaitley’s rejoinder to the replies of Arvind Kejriwal, Ashutosh and four others, who are party in the defamation suit, was allowed and in which the BJP leader has allegedly made a fresh allegation.
The single judge had sought further response from the AAP leaders to Jaitley’s rejoinder.
The order had come on the AAP leaders’ plea for striking off the allegedly new allegations levelled by Jaitley in his replication.
Ashutosh, represented by senior advocate H S Phoolka and advocate Piyush Kalra, has contended in his appeal that by granting him an opportunity to respond to the replication of Jaitley, the single judge has “tangentially acknowledged” that the allegations which had been objected to had been introduced for the first time by the BJP leader in his replication.
He has alleged in his plea that Jaitley “exploited the opportunity of filing replication for the purpose of introducing fresh allegations of defamation”.
“In paragraph 4 and 11 of the preliminary submissions to the replication, respondent 1 (Jaitley) reproduced fresh set of alleged defamatory statements allegedly made by the appellant (Ashutosh) and respondent 2 to 6 (Kejriwal and others).
“It is submitted that the said statements never formed part of the plaint and were introduced for the first time,” he has said in his appeal.
( Source – PTI )
