Jaitley's court appearance draws huge crowd, leads to scuffle

NEW DELHI: A huge crowd, raising of slogans and a minor scuffle between photographers and security personnel marked the presence of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley at the court here where he came to substantiate the charge of criminal defamation against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and five AAP leaders.

As soon as Jaitley's car zoomed into the Patiala House Court complex at 1.56 PM amidst a tight security cover, onlookers, lawyers and police officials surrounded the vehicle.

The security presonnel were on their toes to prevent any untoward incident. As Jaitley came out of his vehicle, a large number of photo journalists rushed towards him to click his picture, leading to a minor scuffle between them and the policemen.

The policemen, who insisted that photography was not permitted inside the court premises, were seen pushing the photo journalists due to which some of them fell down.

Before Jaitley arrived at the court premises, the security officials had asked everyone to vacate the courtroom of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sanjay Khanagwal, before whom the matter was listed.

Only the concerned lawyers were allowed to enter the courtroom along with some BJP leaders.

As Jaitley entered the court, the police officials formed a human chain to prevent the onlookers from entering.

As Jaitley came out of the courtroom at around 4.25 PM after recording his statement, some lawyers and BJP supporters started shouting slogans in his favour.

However, the security officials escorted the minister to his vehicle during which several onlookers, who were trying to come close to Jaitley, were pushed off.