Jaitley appears in court in case against Kejriwal, AAP leaders

Rubbishes allegations of corruption in DDCA when he was president

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday appeared in a Delhi court and said Arvind Kejriwal and five other Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders have made "false and defamatory" statements and rejected the charge that he had siphoned off money from the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA).

Recording his statement before Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) Sanjay Khanagwal in a 70-minute deposition, Jaitley dismissed all the allegations and said he had not received any money from anybody during his tenure as president of DDCA.

He accused AAP leaders of making damaging statements even after complaints were filed against them. He added that Kejriwal made the allegations to deflect attention from the probe launched by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) “against a particular civil servant” who is working with him. The other AAP leaders who have been charged are Kumar Vishwas, Ashutosh, Sanjay Singh, Raghav Chadha and Deepak Bajpai.

Jaitley said Kejriwal's statement was false as the Board of Directors had constituted a committee to supervise the work and he was not a member of the supervisory committee.

"Between December 1999 and December 2013, I was the president of DDCA. I discharged my function lawfully and with utmost integrity.

During my entire tenure, I have not received directly or indirectly a single rupee from the (DDCA) association on any account whatsoever. I have not even charged any amount towards expenditure.

A cricket stadium was built at Ferozshah Kotla during my tenure as president. The Executive Committee/Board of Directors of the DDCA had at the relevant time authorised a committee to supervise the constructions. Broad decisions came up before the board for approval. I was not a member of the committee charged with the construction/renovation of the stadium," he said in his seven-page deposition.

Amidst tight security, Jaitley arrived in the court premises at 1:56 pm and entered the court room at 2 pm for the proceedings. The court has posted the matter for February 3 to record statements of other complainant witnesses in the case.