In December 2015, Jaitley filed a civil defamation case against Kejriwal and AAP leaders Kumar Vishwas, Ashutosh, Sanjay Singh, Raghav Chadha and Deepak Bajpayee, claiming that they made "false and defamatory" statements in the case involving DDCA, thereby harming his reputation. During the court proceedings, Jaitley took strong objections to the word 'crook' used by Jethmalani, when the later was cross-examining him in the civil case. Jaitley then pressed the counsel to clarify whether he had used the word on his own or on instructions of the defendant. When Jethmalani clarified that it was on the basis of instruction from his client, Jaitley filed a new criminal suit against Kejriwal in July, 2017.

After more than two years of litigation, Arvind Kejriwal appears to have taken a tactical decision to get out of several defamation suits filed against him (almost 30 in total), and focus his energy and resources on actual political activities. It was being said that these litigations had substantially drained AAP’s resources, and taking a huge toll on their time. Clearly what seemed a strategic decision, with one year to go for the next general election in 2019, Arvind Kejriwal chose to apologise to Bikram Singh Majithia, a leader of Akali Dal in Punjab, who was alleged to be involved in drug trafficking, Nitin Gadkari, a senior BJP politician and Kapil Sibal, a senior Congress leader, in March, 2018. His apology to Majithia created a huge furore in AAP’s Punjab unit, which had campaigned heavily against Majithia, and left the party workers dejected, and some members resigned also. Still, pundits thought that Kejriwal would continue to fight the defamation case against Arun Jaitley, since it symbolised a huge political fight between AAP and BJP, and also would sustain the corruption charge against BJP leaders.

Alas, that was not to be. On 2nd April, 2018, in a cleverly drafted apology letter, Arvind Kejriwal wrote to Arun Jaitley that “these allegations were made by me were based on information and papers furnished to me by certain individuals who represented to have first-hand insight into the affairs of DDCA. However, I have recently discovered that the information and the imputations contained therein are unfounded and unwarranted and I was clearly misinformed into making these allegations.” Thereafter, he chose to withdraw all the allegations made by him and apologised to Mr. Jaitley and his family members ‘for any harm caused to his reputation’, owing to these allegations. He further stated that the statements made by Ram Jethmalani during the civil suit were made, without his knowledge or instructions.

Similar apology letters were issued by Raghav Chadha, Ashutosh and Deepak Bajpai, but not by Kumar Vishwas who refused to follow suit.

Consequently, on 3rd April, 2018, Kejriwal and three other AAP leaders, along with Jaitley moved a joint application in Delhi High Court to compromise the suit, in light of the former’s unconditional apology to Jaitley. The Delhi High Court accepted the joint application and decreed the suit in accordance with the settlement decree. The suit, however, will continue against Kumar Vishwas.

It is to be seen whether this apology spree, especially to Jaitley, has any significant impact on AAP’s political fortunes. Though Kejriwal has been panned on social media for backtracking on his statements against Jaitley and Majithia, others have tried to be more empathetic to AAP’s decision, considering how besieged they were under scores of litigations. But one thing is clear that Kejriwal’s credibility has taken a beating, as well as AAP’s anti-corruption brand, and it will be herculean task now for AAP to ‘reinvent’ its image and to convince the public that AAP is serious about its anti-corruption plank.

These events also make it clear that the law on defamation, especially criminal defamation, is being constantly used by political rivals against each other, especially by big political parties flush with funds to silence small regional parties, and to drain them of resources. This is a classic example where the process becomes the punishment. It is high time that the law is removed from the statute book, i.e., the offence of defamation, in order to create a level playing field for all parties.

[Arun Jaitley v Arvind Kejriwal, Interim Application No. 4313 of 2018 in Civil Suit (Original Side) No. 3457 of 2015] (IPA Service)