Arvind Kejriwal, 5 AAP leaders issued notice by Delhi High Court over defamation suit filed by union minister Arun Jaitley.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday filed both civil and criminal defamation cases against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and five other Aam Aadmi Party leaders for allegedly defaming him and sought Rs 10 crore in damages and their prosecution for offences that entails a punishment of up to two years in jail.

A week after a Central Bureau of Investigation raid on the chief minister's secretariat against his principal secretary that triggered allegations by AAP against Jaitley in the affairs of the Delhi's cricket body DDCA, the minister took the legal recourse saying the AAP leaders' "malicious and defamatory" campaign was causing irreversible damage to him.

The others who have been named in both the petitions are Kumar Vishwas, Ashutosh, Sanjay Singh, Raghav Chadha and Deepak Bajpai.

The Patiala House courts in the heart of the city saw the rare spectacle of a union minister walking amidst a jostling crowd of Bharatiya Janata Party supporters, who shouted slogans against Kejriwal, to enter the court of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sanjay Khanagwal to file the criminal complaint.

Jaitley came to the court a little after lunch at 2.05 pm and the proceedings lasted 35 minutes. A phalanx of union ministers, including M Venkaiah Naidu, Smriti Irani, Dharmendra Pradhan and J P Nadda, also came to the court and later said they were showing solidarity with Jaitley describing him as a man of impeccable integrity.

Noted criminal lawyer Ram Jethmalani will represent Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in the suits.