Delhi LG VK Saxena to file defamation case against Atishi, Saurabh Bhardwaj, other AAP MLAs

The sharpening friction between the Aam Aadmi Party’s Delhi government and Lt Governor VK Saxena is set to go to court over ‘defamatory’ allegations against the latter by AAP functionaries.

Raj Niwas insiders indicated that the LG will move court against AAP’s MLAs Atishi, Saurabh Bhardwaj and Durgesh Pathak, and Jasmine Shah, Vice Chairman, Dialogue and Development Commission of Delhi, for ‘false, fabricated and defamatory allegations of corruption’ linking him to a 2016 scam in the Khadi and Village Industries Commission he chaired then.

AAP leaders and party members recently alleged that KVIC employees were forced to exchange demonetised notes worth Rs 1,400 crore in 2016 under pressure from Saxena when he was chairman. As per Raj Niwas insiders, CBI has already inquired into the case at the behest of KVIC and has filed the charge sheet against two accused persons. The case is pending in the Rouse Avenue Court, New Delhi.


“The people on the basis of whose statements these allegations are being manufactured against the LG are the two people who have prima facie been found to be engaged in corruption at KVIC after demonetization by CBI… It is reiterated that the matter being falsely touted by the AAP is with regards to just Rs 17.07 lakh as against the claims of Rs 1,400 crore which is nothing but a figment of imagination for which the habitual liars will face the consequences,” said a source at Raj Niwas.

The LG has taken a serious view of these blatantly ‘false, defamatory and obviously diversionary allegations’ and has decided to take legal action against the leaders involved so that the AAP does not get away with its characteristic ‘shoot and scoot’, said a source.