In a fresh statement, veteran lawyer Ram Jethmalani on Tuesday (04 April) offered to fight Arvind Kejriwal case in the High Court for free after the latter was unable to pay his fees and sought local people's help to pay his fees with the government fund.
Ram Jethmalani is fighting a defamation case for the CM of Delhi against the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley who filed a criminal case in 2015 over their comments on the DDCA corruption controversy demanding a punishment of up to two years of jail. A defamation suit was also filed before the Delhi High Court demanding 10 crore in damages against AAP leaders Kejriwal, Kumar Vishwas, Sanjay Singh, Ashutosh and two others.
Jethmalani had billed one crore as his retainer fees and 22 lakh per appearance in the court. He made 11 appearances making it a total of 3.42 crore till now.
Deputy CM Manish Sisodia sent the file to the finance department and Lieutenant Governor for the bill to be passed making it a government case but it was rejected saying it was his personal statement made to the Union Minister. The bill was later sent to the law department which couldn't give approval on the grounds saying it needed approval of the administrative department whose files were raided by the CBI.
Ram Jethmalani has offered to fight Kejriwal's case for free saying he only charges rich people and offers free services to the poor. He was quoted by ANI saying, "Even if Delhi government doesn't pay or he can't pay, I will appear for free, will treat Kejriwal as one of my poor clients."
Jethmalani has offered to fight his case for free since he feels he is a clean force compared to Arun Jaitley. This comes after Arvind Kejriwal wanted local people of Delhi to pay for his case saying he wasn't efficient to pay the bill in crores. But was it ideal of Kejriwal to ask people to pay for his bills of a lawyer. The statements were made in his personal space and collecting almost 3.5 crore from people would not have been justified while the case is still pending.
BW Reporters
The author is a correspondent with BW Businessworld with keen interest in HR and employee welfare.
