Ram Jethmalani moves court against BJP, seeks crores as damages

Mangalore Today News Network/DHNS

New Delhi, Oct 21: Renowned criminal lawyer and expelled Rajya Sabha member of the Bharatiya Janata Party Ram Jethmalani has slapped a defamation case against the Parliamentary Board of the party for sacking him. He had filed a petition in the Delhi High Court on October 5.

In his defamation petition Jethmalani has said that he was expelled from the party without giving any reason and the action was arbitrary. Jethmalani is demanding a compensation of Rs 50 lakh from each member of the Parliamentary Board, the highest decision making body of the party. Interestingly, he has excluded former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi from the list of respondents.

Vajpayee is unwell and Modi is very close to him. The Parliamentary board has 11 members including LK Advani. The maverick lawyer cum politician also claims that the BJP Parliamentary Board has no power to sack him. Jethmalani was expelled from the party after he openly attacked Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley. He was sacked from the primary membership of the party for six years in May 2013.


In a strongly-worded letter to Jethmalani, conveying the the board’s decision, BJP’s General Secretary Ananth Kumar had said: "You had made several false allegations against the functionaries of the party. You have raised some irrelevant issues relating to the Police Commissioner of Delhi which do not relate to the party at all". Jethmalani claims that such words have tarnished his image and prestige in the society.

The BJP took more than six months to decide action against him.