Don’t Scare Us With Case, Cooperate With Inquiry Commission: Arvind Kejriwal

On Monday, Jaitley dragged Kejriwal and five other party leaders to court in a defamation suit seeking Rs. 10 crore in damages for accusing him of corruption when he headed the DDCA.

“We are not scared by any law suit and we are not firing off Kirti’s shoulders”, Khetan said.

Jaitley had dismissed the allegations against him, saying this was an attempt by AAP and Kejriwal to deflect attention from the case of corruption against his principal secretary Rajendra Kumar, who was being questioned by the CBI in connection with an alleged scam.

The AAP has alleged massive financial irregularities in the DDCA and has formed a commission to be headed by former solicitor general Gopal Subramanium to probe the functioning of the cricket body.

“Contracts were given out to fraud companies, payments were made, without any verification”, Azad told the press conference here at the press club to expose corruption in Delhi cricket body.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Monday rubbished allegations by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley of her involvement in “targeting” the latter in the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) row. Kejriwal also announced that he would set up a Commission of Inquiry to probe the DDCA affairs.

Jaitley said he was ready to respond to any charges and asked the opposition for a discussion. The raid led to yet another Delhi-Centre battle for turf, with AAP choosing to target Jaitley over the corruption allegations.

Jaitley also filed a criminal defamation complaint against them in the Patiala House court seeking their prosecution under Section 500 of the Indian Penal Code.

Yesterday, BJP MP Kirti Azad held a conference where he talked about irregularities in the DDCA, however he did not take up Jaitley’s name. “These statements by the AAP leaders are politically motivated”, he said while reading out the tweets of the AAP leaders.

A 2014 inquiry into the DDCA unearthed auditing errors and unaccounted expenses that were sanctioned during Jaitley’s tenure.

He chose not to give any legal notice to Kejriwal and other AAP leaders asking them to apologise or face defamation cases.

Two senior government officials said a DDCA committee, whose mandate was limited to investigating transactions in the 2013-2014 financial year, does not blame Jaitley but had uncovered “huge financial irregularity”.