The Supreme Court on Friday granted interim bail to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in a money laundering case linked to the alleged excise policy scam. As per the cause list of July 12 uploaded on the apex court’s website, a bench headed by Justice Sanjiv Khanna will pronounce the judgement.
The apex court reserved its verdict on the plea by Kejriwal, who is represented by senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, on May 17. The Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) national convenor was arrested by the ED on March 21, having skipped all nine summons sent by the federal agency.
In his appeal to the Supreme Court, Kejriwal argued that the his arrest after the announcement (March 18) of the General Elections was “motivated by extraneous considerations”. The Delhi chief minister approached the apex court against the April 9 order of the Delhi High Court that had upheld his arrest in the case.
Granting the CM bail, the bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta referred some questions regarding the need and necessity of the arrest to a larger bench. However, Kejriwal will continue to remain in jail as he was also arrested by the CBI on June 26 in connection with a corruption case linked to the excise policy case. The ED had arrested Kejriwal on March 21.
The apex court had on April 15 sought a response from the ED on Kejriwal’s plea challenging his arrest in the money laundering case. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief has challenged in the top court the April 9 order of the Delhi High Court that had upheld his arrest in the case.
The high court had upheld Kejriwal’s arrest in the case, saying there was no illegality about it and that the ED was left with “little option” after he skipped repeated summonses and refused to join the investigation.
However, the ED had moved the Delhi High Court the next day and contended that the trial court’s order granting bail to Kejriwal was “perverse”, “one-sided” and “wrong-sided” and that the findings were based on irrelevant facts.
The high court, on June 21, imposed an interim stay on the trial court’s bail order till passing of an order on ED’s application for interim relief. On June 25, the high court had passed a detailed order staying the trial court order.
Arvind Kejriwal was also arrested by the CBI on June 26 in connection with the corruption case related to the alleged excise policy scam. The matter relates to alleged corruption and money laundering in the formulation and execution of the Delhi government’s excise policy for 2021-22, which has now been scrapped.