Indian court orders Delhi chief minister to stand trial

A court in the Indian capital on Saturday ordered Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and five other leaders of his Aam Aadmi Party to face trial in a defamation case filed against them by Indian Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sumit Dass said that all the Aam Aadmi Party leaders, including Kejriwal, will face trial in the case, proceedings of which will start from May 20.

Apart from Kejriwal, other party leaders are former media personality-turned politician Ashutosh, poet-turned-politician Kumar Vishwas, Sanjay Singh, Raghav Chaddha and Deepak Bajpai.

If convicted, they will face up to two years in jail.

Jaitley filed the defamation case as well as another civil suit some two years ago, seeking damages against Kejriwal and others after they accused him of financial irregularities when Jaitley was president of the Delhi Cricket Association between 2000 and 2012.

Jaitley has alleged that the Aam Aadmi Party leaders collectively undertaken a false/malicious defamatory campaign to gain political mileage and other unwarranted benefits at the cost of causing irreversible damage to him and his family.

All the six Aam Aadmi Party leaders have pleaded not guilty.

Kejriwal, a former civil-servant-turned-politician whose party swept to power in Delhi in 2015 assembly polls, is well-known in India for making wild allegations against opposition politicians without substantiating them.

source: Xinhua