No early relief to CM AAP Chief Arvind Kejriwal ;SC declines early hearing
No early relief to CM AAP Chief Arvind Kejriwal ;SC declines early hearing
The Supreme Court on Monday morning refused immediate relief for the Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal over a plea challenging his arrest last month on money laundering charges linked to the alleged liquor policy scam.
Kejriwal arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on March 21 will now have to wait till the agency responds on
April 27 to his plea, and the court reconvenes to hear its argument on April 29.
Arvind Kejriwal will remain in jail for 10 days after the start of the Lok Sabha election in which his Aam Aadmi Party (part of the Congress-led INDIA opposition bloc) is widely seen as a key rival to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) in Delhi and Punjab, which together have
20 Lok Sabha seats.
In the midst of the hearing today, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for Kejriwal, told a bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Dipankar Datta he had “facts to shock the conscience of the court.
He also hit out at “selective leaks all over the place” to discredit the CM and sought an extremely short date of Friday to begin hearing the petition. The court, though, refused the plea.
The Court said that they will give a reasonable date a very short date. The court also said, as it also told Singhvi to “reserve his arguments” after he continued to press for an earlier hearing.
The SC’s setback to Kejriwal’s hope of an early hearing and possible release, to allow him to campaign for the AAP comes after the Delhi High Court last week rejected the same petition.
There is no Delhi High Court Relief For Kejriwal as the court said the ED had submitted enough material to back its claim that the CM was allegedly involved in forming the now-scrapped policy and demanding bribes of
Rs 100 crore.
In the High Court Kejriwal vehemently argued against his arrest, pointing to the timing of the federal agency’s action.
The AAP boss, a vocal critic of the ruling BJP, was taken into custody hours after he was refused protection. That was after he skipped multiple summons. alleging a political conspiracy.
Eventually Kejriwal’s arrest was ruled valid and his plea dismissed.
Kejriwal had approached the Supreme Court after the High Court turned down his appeal, but had to wait because the top court said it would not constitute a special bench to hear him; the court was closed (for Eid) when the AAP leader approached on Thursday, April 10. Friday was a holiday too.
Meanwhile, Kejriwal has called his arrest an “unprecedented assault on the tenets of democracy” based on “free and fair elections” and “federalism”. The AAP has denied all charges and described the case against its National Convenor as “political vendetta” meant to destroy the party before the election.
Judges Not Bound By Politics High Court On Kejriwal’s Petition
Political considerations can’t be brought before a court of law… the matter before this court is not a conflict between the central government and Arvind Kejriwal. It is a case between Kejriwal and ED.”
Meanwhile, in a related hearing, a Delhi court extended Kejriwal’s judicial custody till April 23.
A defiant Kejriwal became the first sitting CM to be arrested; weeks earlier another opposition leader, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha’s Hemant Soren, narrowly avoided that distinction by resigning minutes before his arrest by the ED, in an unrelated money laundering case.
With reference to the alleged liquor policy scam, the ED has also arrested two of Kejriwal’s colleagues; his ex-deputy, Manish Sisodia, was arrested in February last year and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh in October. Singh was granted bail this month by the Supreme Court, which asked the ED some tough questions, including asking why he had been jailed for six months without a trial.
The top court also wanted to know why the agency had failed, so far, to recover any of the alleged bribe money. “Nothing has been recovered… there is no trace (of money allegedly received by the AAP as bribes for allotting liquor permits to the ‘South Group’)…” the court remarked.
Sisodia’s bail plea is to be heard later today.
The ED has repeatedly claimed the Aam Aadmi Party conspired to receive Rs 600 crore in bribes including from a ‘south group’ led by opposition leader K Kavitha of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi, who has also been arrested – for allotment of retail and wholesale liquor permits for the national capital.
Earlier today K Kavitha also saw her judicial custody extended till April 23.
News Edit K.V.Raman
