Arun Jaitley v. Arvind Kejriwal- (Case Commentary)
INTRODUCTION
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and 4 other leaders from his Aam Aadmi Party apologised to Arun Jaitley in reference to a defamation suit the minister filed against them in 2015. In separate written apologies dated April 1, Kejriwal, Ashutosh, Sanjay Singh, Raghav Chadha and Deepak Bajpai offered their “sincere apology” to Jaitley and his relations “for any harm caused to their reputation”. Jaitley sought Rs 10 crore in damages after the AAP leaders alleged that he had indulged in corruption during his 13-year tenure because the head of the Delhi and District Cricket Association, which resulted in 2013. Jaitley and Kejriwal have filed a joint application in a very court in Delhi’s Patiala House Court complex to possess the criminal defamation case withdrawn, the days of India reported. The court will hear the matter on Tuesday. The finance minister’s lawyer Manim Dogra told ANI that his client has “accepted their apology” within the criminal defamation case. He added that they're going to “agree to a decree” within the civil defamation suit supported the apology of the AAP leaders and consider accepting it then.
BACKGROUND
ANALYSIS
This court’s viewpoint that
the fundamental factor of Order 6 Rule 16, CPC is to ensure that each party
to a suit should bring forward in its pleadings material documents in an
intelligible form without causing embarrassment to its adversant. Normally, a
court cannot direct parties on how they ought to prepare their
pleadings. If the parties haven't violated the principles of pleadings by
making appropriate averments or raising arguable issues, the court shouldn't order the pleadings to
be struck off. The propensity to
withdraw pleadings is remarkable and must be operated by the court with utmost
caution and discretion. The Supreme Court in Abdul Razak v. Mangesh Rajaram Wagle
and Others: If the parties don't infringe
any legitimate provision, they
require the freedom to form pertinent
assertions and raise debatable
matters. The court can mark the
pleadings providing it's satisfied that the identical are unnecessary,
scandalous, frivolous or vexatious or tend to prejudice, embarrass or delay the
fair trial of the suit or the court is satisfied that suit is an abuse of the method of the court. Although
disseminating the arguments has genuine conflicting influence on the rights of
the party, the capability to attempt and perform has got to be performed
with tutelage and
discretion. Thereafter, this court is of the aspect that the assertions may be directed to disseminate
under Order 6 Rule 16, CPC administering they're delineated to be unnecessary,
scandalous, frivolous or vexatious or abuse of the method of law or if they amount to re-litigation or tend
to embarrass the defendants within
the trial of the suit.
From a perusal of the pleadings this Court is of the view that explanation for action as disclosed within the present plaint filed on 22nd May, 2017 is that the plaintiff had been subjected to questions, terminologies/ statements during cross examination in CS (OS) 3457/2015 that were ex facie abusive, malicious, offensive, irrelevant and slanderous. The senior advocate on behalf the defendant had addressed the plaintiff as rouge and had further declared that the plaintiff was culpable of crimes on the exact direction of the defendant. In support of the defence, the defendant had said a subsequent letter dated 20th July, 2017 written by him to his Senior Advocate wherein he had stated that he had neither instructed the advocate on record nor the senior counsel to use the words "crook" and "guilty of crimes and crookery" against the plaintiff
The
plaintiff within the impugned
paragraphs within the replication
has stated that the defendant so
as to make a
moonshine defence has allegedly written the following letter dated 20th July, 2017 to his senior
advocate denying his specific instructions. In support of his contention, the
plaintiff has cited the
interview given by the senior advocate representing the defendant in CS (OS)
3457/2015 to Times of India, a national daily, additionally as a news portal and his letter to the plaintiff
- all following the
filing of the suit. The plaintiff has averred within the impugned paragraphs that the then senior advocate
representing the defendant had voluntarily waived the lawyer-client privilege
not only during the cross examination on 17th May, 2017 itself, but also
subsequently in his interview to the
days of India, news portal also as his letter addressed to the plaintiff.
Within the opinion of this Court, the plaintiff in its replication has neither made out a replacement case nor a fresh reason behind action or enlarged the scope of the suit. In fact, the replication within the present instance contains averments and evidence in support of the initial reason for action as mentioned within the plaint and is that the plaintiff's answer to the defendant's plea within the written statement in accordance with the judgment of this Court in Anant Construction (P) Ltd. Vs. Ram Niwas, 1994 (31) DRJ. The pleas within the replication aren't inconsistent or discordant with the first pleadings. Subsequently, the judgments alleged by the learned senior counsel for the defendant are extraneous to the details of the discussed case. This Court is additionally of the view that neither Order VI nor Order VII CPC has been violated within the present instance. In fact, the averments within
the replication
crystallize the plaintiff's stand on a crucial issue and are relevant to the case at hand.
Accordingly, the counterfeit can neither be called as defamatory nor trivial or
afflicting or irrelevant or exploitation of procedure of law. Nevertheless,
since the defendant points
that he had no scope of disproving the documents established within the counterpart, this
Court allows the defendant to lodge an additional written statement in compliance to the Order 8 Rule
9 CPC by four weeks. With the abovementioned observations and direction,
current application is discharged.
CONCLUSION
Arvind
Kejriwal and his four colleagues expressed remorse to Union government minister Arun Jaitley
for alleging him of exploitation during his tenure being the chief of Delhi and District Cricket Association.
Hours later, a joint application was moved within the Delhi tribunal and
city court by the parties to settle the over two-year-old litigation.
Kejriwal, together with senior
AAP leaders Sanjay Singh, Ashutosh, Raghav Chadha and Deepak Bajpai, all
named within the criminal
and civil defamation case slapped by Jaitley, apologised to the minister of finance.
Kumar Vishwas, an AAP leader who has drifted other than Kejriwal, declined to apologise. He said he would
be failing thousands of AAP volunteers if he chose to apologise for calling out
political adversaries for his or
her alleged corruption. The party contended that they resolved as twenty defamation cases were lodged
against them by several political leaders beyond India, enumerating that they
seek to focus their potentialities on furnishing the nation rather than disputing cases. In
five different letters, all Kejriwal and his associates — Ashutosh, Singh,
Chadha and Bajpai — articulated grief over their assertions against the Union
minister during his tenure as DDCA president. In 2015, Jaitley lodged a
criminal derogatory accusation against Kejriwal, Vishwas, Singh, Ashutosh,
Chadha and Bajpai for their assertions. He also lodged a civil derogatory suit,
appealing Rs10 crore as compensation. In his letter, Kejriwal also griefed on
behalf of lawyer Ram Jethmalani, who was his counselor. Jethmalani consequently
abandon the case and declared Rs1 crore from Kejriwal as his legal fees.
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