BJP leader Arun Jaitley in December 2015 had filed a defamation case against Arvind Kejriwal and 5 others for what he claimed were false allegations regarding his alleged role in certain irregularities in the DDCA (Delhi & District Cricket Association). Jaitley sought compensation of 10 crore rupees due to damages caused by alleged defamatory statements by Kejriwal.
After the case was filed, Kejriwal sought the legal help of eminent lawyer Ram Jethmalani to untangle himself from the mess. But for Kejriwal, hiring Jethmalani seems to be resulting in him getting into further mess.
First the whole case came into public spotlight after Ram Jethmalani while cross-examining Arun Jaitley asked some completely irrelevant but hilarious questions. You can read about those here.
The case then became a major controversy after it was reported that Ram Jethmalani had ended up billing Kejriwal Rs 3.42 crores so for and Kejriwal was trying to make the Delhi taxpayers pay the bills for a case which he (and five other members of the Aam Aadmi Party viz. Ashutosh, Raghav Chadha, Sanjay Singh, Kumar Vishwas, and Deepak Bajpai) was fighting under his personal capacity and not as the Chief Minister of Delhi.
Now the case is again in the news for a reason which is even stranger than the previous two. As it turns out, during a hearing on 17th May, Ram Jethmalani went on an overdrive and called Arun Jaitley a “crook”.
Jaitley took exception to the term and lodged a strong objection to the comments. When Ram Jethmalani was asked whether he was authorized by Kejriwal to use the phrase, he (Jethmalani) answered in affirmative. The Delhi High Court too had expressed its shock and called the comments scandalous. Arun Jaitley had then said that if the term was used on behalf of Kejriwal, he will seek aggravated damages.
Now Jaitley has gone ahead and and has asked for another Rs 10 crore in damages for the “crook” comment against him. This case would reportedly run separately from the current one.
So now Ram Jethmalani who was supposed to get Kejriwal out of trouble in one defamation case has to fight two defamation cases. It is not clear if that means that Jethmalani will issue fresh bills for this fresh case.
