Former President of Bharatiya Janata Party Nitin Gadkari has slapped a defamation notice on Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for accusing him of being “corrupt” while senior Congress leader and Union Law Minister Kapil Sibal has challenged him to prove his charges or resign.
Mr. Kejriwal on Friday had caused a flutter across party lines when he reeled out list of names of leaders who he alleged are “corrupt”. The list includes the names of Mr. Gadkari, Mr. Sibal and several others.
Reacting to Mr. Kejriwal’s accusation, the BJP leader has served a notice, urging him to withdraw his statements within three days, failing which legal action will follow.
“You are hereby called upon to withdraw your defamatory and malicious remarks by publishing and publicly apologising before all the news channels and withdrawing the name of my client from the contents of news ‘List of India’s Most Corrupt’,” the notice reads.
The notice served on the Delhi Chief Minister goes on to say that Mr. Kejriwal has made, “false, malicious and baseless allegations which are aimed at destroying the image of Mr. Gadkari in public and thus amount to be being defamatory and scandalous”.
Mr. Sibal for his part said he was surprised by the allegation. He in turn slammed the Delhi Chief Minister and said his intentions are “malafide”. The Law Minister has given Mr. Kejriwal two days to turn in evidence of corruption against him, failing which he has asked the Chief Minister to resign.
Mr. Sibal asserted that if Mr. Kejriwal is able to prove his allegations, he would resign from his position and also quit politics.
Published - February 01, 2014 07:38 pm IST
