A Delhi court has fined Aam Aadmi Party leader Ashutosh Rs 10,000 for “trying to derail the proceedings” in a criminal defamation case that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had filed against him, PTI reported on Sunday.
Ashutosh had demanded that the finance minister’s statement be rerecorded in Hindi. The court rejected his plea, and said that the AAP leader moved the application even though he did not have even “slight discomfiture in English”.
“The present application seems to be nothing but an attempt to derail the proceedings of the case and waste precious time of the court having moved with no serious or real purpose,” Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Deepak Sherawat said. “First of all, neither the applicant [Ashutosh] nor his pleader [advocate] can be said to be having even slight discomfiture in English language”.
“The applicant is author of well-known book in English, and he can be seen giving interviews in English day in and day out on English news channels and elsewhere,” the court observed. It said that it was impossible to record Jaitley’s statement in Hindi because the computers being used supported only English software.
Sherawat also noted that the application seeking re-recording of Jaitley’s statement was itself filed in English. “The application has been filed to protract the proceedings and is dismissed with a cost of Rs 10,000,” the court said.
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