The Supreme Court Denies Interim Bail to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal 14/08.

The Supreme Court has refused to grant interim bail to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in a corruption case related to the now-canceled Delhi liquor policy. The court called for the CBI’s response to Mr. Kejriwal’s bail plea and posted the next hearing to August 23.

“The situation is peculiar,” Senior Advocate Abhishek Singhvi told the bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan for Mr Kejriwal. “There was the grant of interim bail to Kejriwal in a PMLA Prevention of Money Laundering Case, by an order dated May 10. Following this, on July, interim bail was granted to him by the Supreme Court. Apart from this, a lower court had also released him on bail in a CBI case. Singhvi called the detention of Mr. Kejriwal an “insurance arrest” and termed the legal grounds for keeping his client in jail “completely untenable.”.

He also argued that Mr. Kejriwal was arrested by the CBI, almost two years after the case was registered, and such arrest was not legally permissible and mala fide. He was sure that Mr. Kejriwal was applying the bail parameters. All these arguments proved an exercise in futility because the Supreme Court did not permit any interim relief, categorically telling the lawyers, “Don’t say interim bail; we will not give interim bail.”

The Delhi High Court upheld the Chief Minister’s arrest on August 5 and termed the CBI’s action faultless, asserting that it had ‘shown how Mr. Kejriwal could influence witnesses’.

The Delhi Excise Policy, which was launched in November 2021, was rolled back in September last year over allegations of corruption. Delhi Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena had recommended a CBI probe into the policy. The CBI and the Enforcement Directorate have charged AAP leaders with irregularities and giving undue favors to licensees after the policy came into force.

Apart from Mr. Kejriwal, other senior AAP leaders, namely Manish Sisodia and Sanjay Singh, were arrested in the cases relating to corruption in the liquor policy. Both of them are out on bail at present. On its part, the AAP has termed the charges as politically motivated and has accused the BJP, which is ruling at the Centre.

MrSinghtv.com