Union finance minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday said he will bring a defamation suit against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for his party’s allegations of irregularity in the Delhi cricket body. The minister had headed the DDCA for 13 years till 2013.
Cases will also be filed today against Aam Aadmi Party’s Kumar Vishwas, Ashutosh, Sanjay Singh, Raghav Chadha, Deepak Bajpayee, news agency Press Trust of India reported the minister as saying.
The minister’s comments come in the backdrop of the Delhi government’s order for an inquiry into the alleged financial irregularities of the state cricket body. The commission of inquiry will be headed by former Solicitor General of India Gopal Subramaniam, Mr Kejriwal had tweeted.
Mr Kejriwal’s party has accused Mr Jaitley of corruption and insisted that he resign or be removed to clear the decks for an investigation. Mr Jaitley has rejected the allegations, saying it was Mr Kejriwal’s way of diverting attention from the Central Bureau of Investigation’s probe into the doings of an officer close to him.
In a Facebook post last week, he wrote Mr Kejriwal “seems to believe in untruth and defamation, delivered in a language that borders on hysteria”.
He also wrote that the Serious Fraud Investigation Office, under the UPA regime, had “investigated and could not find a shred of evidence” against him. “No personal allegation was ever made against me nor did I ever feel the need of contradicting it,” he had added.
The minister’s party is solidly backing him and has dismissed Mr Kejriwal’s claims as “malicious”.
But BJP lawmaker and former cricketer Kirti Azad today held a media conference, alleging massive financial irregularities in the cricket body, ranging from contracts to fake companies, paying them crores of rupees in cash and fudging accounts.
The lawmaker, who had gone ahead with the media conference despite the party’s disapproval, said he was a “fan” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s campaign against corruption and was out to counter corruption.
The DDCA has admitted that there were irregularities, but has absolved Mr Jaitley of any involvement.
“After Arun Jaitley left, the president of DDCA sent Rs. 155 crore without any authorisation… We suspended him, he got an interlocutory order from the court, we had an inquiry also and we took away all his powers,” said DDCA treasurer Ravindra Manchanda.