Ram Jethmalani's bid to drag PM Narendra Modi into Arun Jaitley case foiled

NEW DELHI: Veteran lawyer Ram Jethmalani's attempt to drag in PM Narendra Modi in his cross-examination of finance minister Arun Jaitley in the civil defamation suit against AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal failed to pass muster with the court that disallowed the question.

Jethmalani, continuing his cross-examination in connection with the Rs 10-crore civil defamation suit filed by Jaitley, wondered why the BJP leader had not listed the PM as a witness. The query was ruled out by the court. “Since you are a minister in the Cabinet, the best character witness for you should be the PM himself.Do you intend to examine him?“ Jethmalani, who is representing Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, asked. But the court intervened to say that the list of Jaitley's witnesses was already on record. Jethmalani's further questions on this line of argument were also disallowed by joint registrar Deepali Sharma. “The question is disallowed as it is irrelevant to the issues in the matter,“ the joint registrar said.

During the nearly two-hour proceedings, Jaitley also refuted Jethmalani's allegations of misappropriation of Rs 57 crore during his term as president of the DDCA, saying the amounts were spent on creation of sports infrastructure and duly audited.

When the senior lawyer asked why Jaitley didn't want the government to fund construction and renovation of Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium, the minister cited the example of Rs 900 crore and Rs 600 crore of government money being spent on sprucing up Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium and Major Dhyanchand Stadium for the Commonwealth Games.

“Expenditure of Rs 114 crore incurred on a world class cricket stadium of over 42,000 capacity compared very favourably“ with the money spent on other stadiums by the government, the Union finance minister pointed out. He termed the allegation of misappropriation as “wrong“ and said there was “no controversy except a false allegation“ by the AAP chief. “ All monies have been duly spent during my tenure and are accordingly reflected in the audited accounts,“ Jaitley said in response to Jethmalani's query if it was correct that Rs 57 crore was misappropriated and was shown as expenses in Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) account.

Jaitely added, “The monies have been spent on creation of sports infrastructure and assets. There is no controversy except a false allegation by the defendants.“ He said the association had created a new model, under which naming rights of various blocks and corporate boxes provided adequate funding to start construction and its historical name `Feroz Shah Kotla' was retained. The minister's counsel interrupted with one voice when Jethmalani tried to link Jaitley with senior journalist and now a minister, M J Akbar, over alleged non-publishing of an article in a national daily on irregularities in the DDCA.