Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday filed both civil and criminal defamation suits against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and five other Aam Aadmi Party members in the national capital. Jaitley led a contingent of Bharatiya Janata Party leaders to the Patiala House Court in a show of strength after Kejriwal last week alleged that that he was involved in corruption during his time as head of the Delhi & District Cricket Association.

Jaitley said his civil case, seeking Rs 10 crore in damages, was filed against Kejriwal, Kumar Vishwas, Ashutosh, Sanjay Singh, Raghav Chadha and Deepak Bajpai. The criminal defamation case will come up for hearing next on January 5, PTI reported, when Jaitley will be asked to provide evidence for his complaint.

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However, Kejriwal said he was not intimidated by the cases filed against him. Instead, he tweeted, "Jaitley ji shud cooperate wid the Commission of Enquiry n prove his innocence there."

His charges came soon after the Central Bureau of Investigation raided Delhi principal secretary Rajendar Kumar’s office, in a separate corruption investigation that the chief minister claimed was retaliation for looking into DDCA affairs. The raid led to yet another Delhi-Centre battle for turf, with AAP alleging that Jaitley was involved in financial irregularities in the cricket body. The Delhi government has set up a commission to be headed by former solicitor general of India, Gopal Subramaniam, to look into the allegations. It has also called for a special one-day session of the state assembly to discuss the scam.

On Sunday, Bharatiya Janata Party MP from Bihar Kirti Azad held a press conference, also alleging that there were financial irregularities in the DDCA during Jaitley’s time as its head. Azad dared Jaitley on Monday to name him in the suit as well.