 "Arun Jaitley, DDCA")
The highlight was when Congress President Sonia Gandhi tried to catch the attention of Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan to allow Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Kirti Azad to speak in the Lok Sabha on the issue of purported financial irregularities in the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA).
Some in the BJP claimed the Congress President had implored with shouts of "Kirti" to ask Azad to speak and how this was further proof that Azad was Congress' "Trojan horse" in the BJP. "Outrageous, (that) I took instructions from Congress President?! We have been fighting since nine years, shown fraud companies with fraud bank accounts?"Azad tweeted.
That the Speaker allowed Azad to speak on the issue during the Zero Hour and the three-time MP from Darbhanga continued to spew venom on Jaitley, particularly on social media, seemed to indicate the support that he could be getting from a section within the party. "Hello dear Arun Jaitley, aren't you filing defamation against me? Please do, don't take injunction, don't gag freedom of speech," Azad, who played 25 One Day Internationals and 7 tests for India, tweeted in the afternoon.
In the Lok Sabha, Azad said that instead of disrupting proceedings the Congress should demand a time bound probe into the mess at the DDCA. The Congress, led by Sonia Gandhi, staged a walkout. In his reply, Jaitley dismissed the charges while Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu rejected demands that the Finance Minister should quit. The Congress led the rest of the Opposition parties to force adjournments in the Rajya Sabha over the issue.
When asked whether any disciplinary action was likely to be taken against Azad, sources in the government said it was for BJP President Amit Shah to decide. The Finance Minister filed defamation suits against AAP leaders and sought Rs 100 million as damages. Party leaders, including some union ministers, and hundreds of workers turned up at the Patiala House courts in large numbers to express solidarity with Jaitley and shout slogans against Kejriwal.
Senior advocate Siddhartha Luthra, appearing for the Finance Minister, alleged that the AAP leaders have made baseless and defamatory allegations against Jaitley regarding alleged financial irregularities in the Delhi and District Cricket Association. "Jaitley has not drawn a single penny from the DDCA," Luthra said during the 35-minute long hearing. The complaint was filed under various sections of the Indian Penal Code including 499 (defamation), 500 (punishment), 501 and 502 (printing and sale of defamatory matter). Union ministers M Venkaiah Naidu, JP Nadda, Smriti Irani, Dharmendra Pradhan, Piyush Goyal and Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore were present in the court.
"Jaitley should not try to scare us by filing cases against us. Our battle against corruption shall continue. Jaitley ji should co-operate with the Commission of Inquiry and prove his innocence there," Kejriwal tweeted. He even questioned the motivations of some media outlets who didn't cover the press conference of Azad on Sunday, where the retired cricketer had alleged massive financial bungling in the functioning of DDCA.
The Delhi cabinet today approved the decision to institute a one person commission of inquiry headed by senior advocate and former Solicitor General of India Gopal Subramanium to probe the alleged financial irregularities in DDCA. The Delhi cabinet has also called a special session of the Delhi Assembly on Tuesday to discuss the DDCA 'scam' and the CBI raids on the Delhi Secretariat.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPI(M) today demanded a thorough probe in the matter and suggested that Jaitley should resign. "If they stick to their own yardstick that any minister facing charges of corruption must demit office, then they should do this," party chief Sitaram Yechury said.
