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BJP leader Kapil Mishra has tendered his unconditional apology to Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain before a Delhi court, stating that his allegations of graft against Jain following his ouster from the Aam Aadmi Party were “politically motivated and wrong”.
Jain had filed a criminal defamation case against Mishra and submitted that on May 7, 2017, the latter had made a statement accusing him of giving a bribe to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on May 5. Mishra, who was a minister in the Delhi government and was removed from the cabinet a few days before he made the allegations, was summoned in the case and charges framed against him under IPC Section 500 (defamation).
Mishra Wednesday told a Special MP/MLA court, presided by Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Vishal Pahuja, that he is “ready to make the statement before the court tendering unconditional apology”. “I am the accused in the present case. I state that the statements made by me against the complainant were politically motivated and wrong. I tender my unconditional apology to the complainant and the same will never be repeated. I undertake to publish the above statement on social media through my official handles,” Mishra’s statement to the court read.
Jain told the court that if Mishra “makes the statement before court, he shall withdraw the present complaint”. “I have gone through the statement made by the accused before the court today. In view of the statement…, I do not wish to proceed with the present complaint further,” Jain told the court.
After separate statements of Mishra and Jain were recorded by the court, the complaint was disposed of after it was withdrawn.
As per court documents, Jain had submitted extracts of statements made by Mishra to various newspapers, which read, “Day before yesterday, at Kejriwal’s house I saw Satyendar Jain give Kejriwal Rs 2 crore in cash. I asked him ‘What is this?’ He (Kejriwal) refused to answer. And then he said, ‘In politics, things like this happen that can only be talked about later’.”
Jain had told the court that “the accused did not stop here and further went on to malafidely link the complainant with allegations of corruption and illegitimate multi crores deals”.
During arguments on framing of charges, Mishra’s lawyers had argued the “statement made by the accused was in public good”.
In a statement, Jain said “the unconditional apology exposes the reality that Mishra had no ground to such allegations and did that with a political purpose”. “… upon interrogation, Mishra failed to provide facts supporting his claim as he was never present at CM’s house… Yesterday, he submitted a written apology stating the accusations he made were politically motivated and wrong. He has tendered an unconditional public apology and assured non-repetition of the same,” he said.