In an oral observation, the Delhi High court remarked that Arvind Kejriwal was "not being reasonable" and neither was his conduct "reasonable." The court made these remarks with regard to the civil defamation case filed against the Delhi Chief Minister by Union Minister Arun Jaitley, which it was hearing.

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Justice Manmohan told the lawyers defending Kejriwal, "You (defendant 1 - Kejriwal) are not being reasonable. Your conduct is not reasonable. It cannot be like this. We cannot have proceedings go on in this manner. Otherwise tomorrow we will have a fist fight in court. Whole system is on the brink of collapse."

The observations came after Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had moved an application stating to expedite the recording of evidences in the defamation case. The case was filed by Jaitley against Kejriwal and five other AAP leaders after they alleged that the BJP leader had been "corrupt."

Appearing for Jaitley, his counsel Rajiv Nayyar contended that they were compelled to move the application for speedy trial as every hearing cannot prompt a fresh defamation case.

The court has sought the reply of Kejriwal and the matter has been listed for July 24.

Jaitley moved an application seeking that the recording of evidence should be done in a time-bound, fair, dignified, and bonafide manner. The application also contended that intention of Kejriwal is to delay the conclusion of recording of evidence by posing irrelevant questions which are designed to be insulting and annoying.

The application comes after Senior Advocate Ram Jethmalani had called Jaitley a 'crook'.

In the defamation case, besides Kejriwal, the five other accused are AAP leaders Raghav Chadha, Kumar Vishwas, Ashutosh, Sanjay Singh and Deepak Bajpai. The AAP leaders had accused the BJP leader of corruption when he was the President of the DDCA, a post he had held from 2000 to 2013.

Jaitley, who had denied all the allegations levelled by the AAP leaders in December 2015, had claimed that they had made "false and defamatory" statements in the case involving DDCA, thereby harming his reputation.