Contempt petition in Guj HC against Arun Jaitley, withdrawn

A petition seeking contempt of court proceeding against Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley was filed in the Gujarat High court in connection with the former's article on the CBI investigation going on in 2004 Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case.

The petition came up for hearing on Friday before division bench of Justice Jayant Patel and Justice Z K Sayed. The court observed that since the probe in the Ishrat encounter case was being monitored by another bench of the same court, the contempt petition should also be filed before that particular bench.

It then granted permission to Jan Sangharsh Manch (JSM), which had filed the petition, to withdraw it and filed it before the appropriate bench.

Upon this the petitioner withdrew his contempt petition. The contempt petition was filed by senior counsel Mukul Sinha on behalf of JSM and sought initiation of contempt of court proceeding against Jaitley for his article titled 'Should CBI uncover the IB' published on his personal website.

In his article, Jaitley had alleged Congress was behind CBI move to question IB in the Ishrat Jahan case and said such "misuse" of government institutions for political purposes will destroy them.