HC dismisses AAP leader's plea against Jaitley's allegations

Delhi High Court today dismissed the plea of an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader opposing fresh allegations made by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his reply to a civil defamation case filed by him against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and other AAP members.
A bench of justices Pradeep Nandrajog and Mukta Gupta turned down AAP leader Ashutosh's appeal observing that the nature of allegation referred to in replication (a plaintiff's rejoinder to the defendant's response) is virtually the re-publication of what is said in the main plaint.
"It is actually a case of re-publication of facts mentioned in the main plaint and not additional grounds," the bench observed.

"The appeal is dismissed," the court said, adding that it, however, needed to give certain clarifications to some of the findings of the single judge bench order, as it "prima facie appears to be contrary to the law".
"We will give the detailed order tomorrow," it said.
The AAP leader has challenged a single judge's April 29 order by which Jaitley's replication to the replies of Arvind Kejriwal, Ashutosh and four others, who are party in the civil 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 single judge order had come on the AAP leader's plea for striking off the purported new allegations levelled by Jaitley in his replication.
Phoolka submitted 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," Ashutosh has said in his appeal.

Ashutosh has also contended that the single judge "failed to appreciate that by introducing fresh pleas in the replication, respondent 1 was in fact amending his plaint without the leave of the court and without any opportunity being granted to the appellant to contest such an amendment".
The law does not permit any such subsequent pleading inconsistent with the original pleading to be taken on record and such pleadings are liable to be struck off and taken off from the court record, the appeal said.
Senior advocates Sandeep Sethi, Rajiv Nayar and Pratibha M Singh, appearing for Jaitley, argued that no fresh allegations were made in the replication and the documents were already there in the main plaint.

"In the replication we have have actually expanded the plaint, nothing new has be stated," Nayar told the court.
Jaitley in his civil defamation suit has sought Rs 10 crore damages from Kejriwal, Raghav Chadha, Kumar Vishwas, Ashutosh, Sanjay Singh and Deepak Bajpai for issuing allegedly false and defamatory statements against him and his family in connection with alleged irregularities in Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) when he was its President for 13 years till 2013.
The union minister has already denied all the allegations.
The union minister has also filed a criminal defamation complaint in a Delhi court on the same issue. The trial court had already summoned Kejriwal and others on the matter. The DDCA has also filed a criminal defamation suit against Kejriwal and suspended BJP MP Kirti Azad.