The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's plea to stay the trial of a criminal defamation filed against him by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
A Bench of Justices P.C. Ghose and U.U. Lalit simply declined the plea with a single-worded order — 'dismissed' — at the end of a relatively brief hearing.
“Your Lordships should protect the Chief Minister of a small State,” senior advocate Ram Jethmalani submitted for Mr. Kejriwal.
“We are here to decide according to the records of the case,” the Bench responded.
The court declined to entertain Mr. Jathmalani's strain of argument that a civil defamation case is already pending against Mr. Kejriwal in the same issue and a simultaneous criminal action cannot be pursued.
The Bench said the evidence and proceedings in civil and criminal cases are of completely different shades and should be considered as separate lists.
The Delhi High Court, on October 19, dismissed Mr. Kejriwal's plea on the same ground and concluded that there was no "illegality" in continuing a criminal action simultaneously with a civil defamation suit in a High Court.
The High Court said there was “no prejudice” on account of a pending civil suit and there was no “double jeopardy” and as such Mr. Kejriwal's plea was "devoid of merit".
Mr. Kejriwal had contented that proceedings before the trial court should be stayed since a civil suit was pending before the High Court and both cannot proceed simultaneously.
Regarding the challenge to the magisterial court's May 19 order dismissing Mr. Kejriwal's plea to grant stay on proceedings due to pendancy of a civil suit, the High Court said that the trial court order was "free from perversity, impropriety, illegality and non-sustainability".
Besides a civil defamation suit in the High Court, Mr. Jaitley had also filed a criminal defamation complaint in a lower court alleging Mr. Kejriwal and five AAP leaders — Raghav Chadha, Kumar Vishwas, Ashutosh, Sanjay Singh and Deepak Bajpai — had defamed him in the Delhi District Cricket Association (DDCA) controversy.
