The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has lambasted Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh for having filed a false defamation case against Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and then, unilaterally withdrawing it.
“The Chief Minister is habitual of first dragging people to court for defamation and then withdrawing the case, with pursuing the matter to its logical end,” a BJP spokesman Ganesh Dutt said here on Thursday.
Demanding an apology from the Chief Minister, Dutt said, “By taking back a defamation case filed by him against Arun Jaitley, it was amply clear that Virbhadra Singh had filed a false case in the first place.”
“Such a step by the Chief Minister has damaged the reputation of Arun Jaitley and he should apologize for it,” he added. The party spokesman pointed out that earlier Virbhadra had filed defamation cases against former minister Vijay Singh Mankotia and journalist Baldev Dukia but had later withdrawn them without claiming any damages.
He said that Virbhadra had filed the defamation case against Jaitley, after the latter had written to the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and CBI demanding a probe into allegation of corruption leveled against Virbhadra.
Dutt said that withdrawing the defamation case would not hinder the CBI investigations being done against him.