AAP govt ads row: Plea in HC seeking contempt against CM Kejriwal

New Delhi, Jul 23: A plea was today filed in the Delhi High Court to initiate contempt proceedings against Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for allegedly misleading people by saying that a PIL to restrain AAP government from airing advertisements glorifying him and his party was dismissed.

A lawyer, in his plea, said that Kejriwal has misled public at large by making untrue statement by misrepresenting and misquoting the July 15 order of Chief Justice G Rohini.

Justice Rohini had asked the Centre to apprise the court about the status of a three-member-body which was to be constituted by them as per the Government Advertisement (Content Regulation) Guidelines, 2014, on a PIL by Congress leader Ajay Maken and had listed it for hearing on July 27.

Maken, chief of the party's Delhi unit, sought direction to restrain Delhi government from publishing name of Kejriwal in any of AAP's current or future advertisements in the national capital and other states as it was allegedly in violation of the Advertisement Guidelines, 2014.

"The respondent (Kejriwal) herein has committed a criminal offence by misquoting and misrepresenting July 15, 2015, order before a TV channel on July 17, which was repeated on July 18 and July 19 respectively.

"The act of Delhi Chief Minister is serious in nature and has been committed willfully and intentionally knowing that this type of order has not been passed by the court and PIL filed by Ajay Maken is pending," the plea filed by advocate Sushil Kumar Pandey, said.

He further said the attempt was made to "achieve political mileage", which shows that Kejriwal does not have any "respect to the laws of land and the judicial system of this country".

"Chief Minister has violated the settled law on contempt of court for which he is liable to punished under Section 12 of Contempt of Courts Act, 1971," the plea added.

PTI