Published 18:17 IST, December 6th 2018
Ram Jethmalani vs BJP tussle comes to amicable conclusion after Amit Shah expresses regret over jurist's expulsion
Ram Jethmalani had filed a suit against the BJP after he was expelled from the party in 2013
The court battle between eminent jurist Ram Jethmalani and the BJP has finally come to an end.
Ram Jethmalani had filed a suit against the BJP after he was expelled from the party in 2013. But after BJP president Amit Shah and General Secretary Bhupendra Yadav expressed their regret to Jethmalani on behalf of the BJP for his expulsion and the party's acknowledgement of Jethmalani’s work, the senior advocate and the party on Thursday decided to withdraw their court battle.
Ram Jethmalani and BJP jointly moved an application to end the suit pending in the Patiala House court. Jethmalani has also acknowledged the conduct of the BJP President and General Secretary and filed a joint application to withdraw the suit seeking damages and compensation.
In 2013, Ram Jethmalani was expelled by the BJP. Soon after, the then BJP president had also suspended the lawyer.
Initially, Jethmalani had moved the Delhi High Court, which later transferred the suit to the Patiala House district courts after the rise in its pecuniary jurisdiction to Rs. 2 crore for filing suits.
In 2016, a Delhi court had imposed a fine of Rs 25,000 on the BJP for non-appearance of its party’s Rajya Sabha Member Bhupender Yadav as a witness in the suit.
The 95-year-old maverick lawyer had called time on his law career in 2017 after having practiced for seven decades as an advocate. He had briefly defended AAP chief and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal in the defamation suit against him by Union Minister Arun Jaitley. Recently, he had been in news for backing the Vice President of India rejecting the Opposition's impeachment motion against the then Chief Justice of India, Dipak Misra. He had said that there are even stronger reasons why it should have been rejected.
"See how much time they must have wasted doing investigation against the CJI for things that happened years before he came to the position", Jethmalani said, asking, "What has the Chief Justice done?
He had also hit out at Rahul Gandhi's Save The Constitution'' rally and ensuing attempts where the Congress president alleged that institutions such as the Supreme Court were being trampled:
"He's too small a person to comment on these big events in our history and you should ignore anything he says. He's just not qualified to make any of these comments."
Updated 21:34 IST, December 6th 2018