New Delhi, (The Telegraph): Arvind Kejriwal today ordered an inquiry into alleged corruption in Delhi's cricket association when Arun Jaitley helmed it, prompting the finance minister to threaten defamation cases against the chief minister.

Hours earlier, BJP parliamentarian Kirti Azad had held his much-anticipated news conference, providing video "evidence" of embezzlement in the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) under Jaitley without naming the minister.

Kejriwal tweeted that former solicitor-general Gopal Subramaniam had agreed to head the inquiry. Subramaniam was instrumental to the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case against BJP chief Amit Shah, and the Narendra Modi government had last year nixed his elevation to the apex court.

Jaitley said his lawyers would file a civil defamation suit against Kejriwal in Delhi High Court and a criminal defamation case in the Patiala House court.

"Wait and see," he told The Telegraph when asked if Kirti might be sued. Sources suggested Jaitley might wait for the party to act against the MP.

Jaitley believes the Delhi government lacks jurisdiction to order an inquiry against a private club like the DDCA but the state claims the Union sports ministry had itself written to it in July seeking such a probe. The Centre is yet to deny this.

Kirti has been the original accuser, whose charges Kejriwal picked up after last week's CBI raid on his principal secretary, which he accuses Jaitley of engineering to intimidate him into backing off a probe.

Kirti, advised by Shah to be "restrained", said he was not "against any one person" before playing the 28-minute video. "I'm a big fan of PM Narendra Modi and his campaign against corruption," he said.

He alleged the DDCA had given contracts to 14 fake companies. The video, produced by the whistleblower website wikileak4india, purports to show reporters going to the addresses of the companies but failing to find them.

It also has footage of a DDCA general body meeting of December 30, 2012, where Kirti is shown alleging corruption.

Later, DDCA president S.P. Bansal, once suspended on graft charges, held a media conference to claim that "only four of those 14 companies received contracts", all according to "the right procedures".

But DDCA working president Chetan Chauhan told PTI the "so-called expose is on the basis of our findings" and "due to those findings S.P. Bansal was removed". He said "the work has been done for sure" but "the way it was allotted was wrong".

No comments came from Prime Minister Modi, away in Kutch, or Shah.