AAP used Twitter, Facebook to damage my reputation: Jaitley

Jaitley alleged that Kejriwal and five other AAP leaders - Kumar Vishwas, Ashutosh, Sanjay Singh, Raghav Chadha and Deepak Bajpai - had falsely stated that as the then DDCA President, he had siphoned off the money and was the beneficiary.  

False claims 

The Finance Minister, who appeared amid tight security before Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sanjay Khanagwal to record his statement supporting the criminal defamation complaint filed by him against Kejriwal and others, said they had given false and defamatory statements against him and his family members. 

He said that Kejriwal’s statement that he had received money when the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium was constructed during his tenure as the DDCA Chief, was false, as the Board of Directors had constituted a committee to supervise the work and he was not a member of this supervisory committee.  Besides Jaitley, the court also recorded the statement of senior journalist Rajat Sharma, who appeared as a complainant witness in the case. 

During recording of his statement which lasted for about 70 minutes, Jaitley referred to Twitter and Facebook posts of the six persons and said their statements had damaged his reputation even after he had filed the defamation complaint. “Their acts attracted adverse public comments and made my reputation discriminatory in the public at large,” Jaitley said, as the recording of his statement concluded today. 

The court has now posted the matter for February 3 to record statements of other complainant witnesses in the case. Jaitley had on December 21 filed the criminal defamation case against Kejriwal and five other AAP leaders for allegedly defaming him and sought their prosecution for offences that entail a punishment of up to two years in jail.