A Delhi Court on Saturday framed a notice against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and five other Aam Aadmi Party leaders in a criminal defamatory case filed against them by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, PTI reported. Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sumit Dass framed the defamatory notices and scheduled the next hearing for May 20.

The accused raised objections to Jaitley’s absence, but the court exempted the Bharatiya Janata Party leader and AAP member Deepak Bajpai from attending the hearing. Kejriwal and the other accused pleaded not guilty. The magistrate asked those not involved in the case to leave the courtroom after the proceedings turned chaotic.

On January 30, a Delhi Court had dismissed a plea filed by the accused, saying it was without any merit and had been “filed solely with a view to stall the trial” in the case.

The Supreme Court on November 22, 2016, had refused to stay the case against the six of them. A similar petition was dismissed by the Delhi High Court, which concluded that the May 19, 2016, decision of the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate to proceed in the case was “free from perversity, impropriety, illegality and non-sustainability”.

A Patiala House Court had granted bail to the defendants in April. Jaitley has said that Kejriwal and five Aam Aadmi Party falsely accused him of corruption during his tenure as head of the Delhi District Cricket Association. The minister had also filed a Rs 10-crore civil suit against Kejriwal and the five AAP leaders.