New Delhi

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and five other Aam Aadmi Party leaders were today summoned as accused by a court here 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.

Jaitley had filed a criminal defamation complaint against Kejriwal and the AAP leaders for allegedly defaming him in the Delhi District Cricket Association (DDCA) controversy.

The Chief Metropolitan Magistrate summoned the CM and the others on the complaint in which Jaitley has alleged that they had made defamatory statements that he and his family had made pecuniary gains by associating with M/s 21st Century Media Pvt Ltd, a sports management firm.

The court had reserved its verdict after hearing the arguments on the complaint, perusing the annexures filed with it and the statements of complainant witnesses recorded in the matter.

The court had earlier recorded statements of Jaitley and other complainant witnesses in the case.

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.

Jaitley had said Kejriwal’s statement that he received money when the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium was constructed during his tenure as the DDCA Chief, was false as Board of Directors had constituted a committee to supervise the work and he was not a member of this supervisory committee.

Jaitley had on December 21, 2015 filed the criminal defamation case against them and sought their prosecution for offences that entail a punishment of upto two years in jail.

PTI