Senior Advocate Anoop George Chaudhari, who represented Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in a defamation case filed against him by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, quit on Thursday, Bar and Bench reported. In July 2017, Ram Jethmalani had quit as Kejriwal’s counsel.
Chaudhari, in a letter addressed to the instructing counsel Anupam Srivastav, said he was withdrawing from Kejriwal’s case because the inadequate briefing he was given resulted in an embarrassing situation for him in court on February 12. On that day, judge Rajiv Sahai Endlaw had told Kejriwal’s lawyers to rework their questions to Jaitley as they were “non-specific”.
“Because of the lackadaisical and casual approach in briefing, the defendant is bound to suffer and I most certainly would not like to be a party to it,” Chaudhari said in his letter to Srivastav on Thursday. “Please convey to the client, Kejriwal, my inability to appear any further in the case,” the letter added.
The 2015 case is related to Kejriwal’s claims that Jaitley had misused funds and his position while he was the president of the Delhi and District Cricket Association. Jaitley had filed a civil and criminal defamation case against Kejriwal and a few other Aam Aadmi Party leaders in 2016. He has also sought Rs 10 crore in damages.
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