Delhi excise case: Kejriwal moves SC against HC's interim stay on bail order

Embattled Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has moved the Supreme Court against the Delhi High Courts interim stay on a trial courts order granting him bail in a money laundering case linked to the alleged excise scamOne of the lawyers of the chief minister said that they will be seeking urgent listing of the petition on MondayThe high court on Friday paused the Kejriwals release after the trial court granted him bail on June 20The Aam Aadmi Party AAP national convener who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate ED on March 21 could have walked out of Tihar jail on Friday had the high court not granted the interim stay relief to the federal antimoney laundering agencyTill the pronouncement of this order the operation of the impugned order shall remain stayed a vacation bench of the high court had said and asked the parties to file written submissions by June 24The high court had listed the plea for hearing on July 10The court had said it was reserving the order for twothree days as it wanted to go through the entire case recordsIt also issued a notice to Kejriwal seeking his response to the EDs plea challenging the trial courts June 20 order by which he was granted bailAdditional Solicitor General ASG S V Raju appearing for the ED in the high court had contended that the trial courtrsquos order was ldquoperverserdquo ldquoonesidedrdquo and ldquowrongsidedrdquo and that the findings were based on irrelevant facts The relevant facts he claimed were not considered by the special judgeSeeking a stay on the trial courtrsquos order Raju had contended that the ED was not given adequate opportunity to argue its caseThe EDrsquos application for stay was vehemently opposed by senior advocates Abhishek Singhvi and Vikram Chaudhari representing Kejriwal They had submitted that Article 21 protection of life and personal liberty of the Constitution does not exist for the ED for which the liberty of a person figured low in prioritySection 45 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act PMLA says an opportunity must be granted to the public prosecutor to present his case but that opportunity was not granted to me Raju had contendedHe had said the trial court did not even look at his reply on the ground that it was bulky and claimed that the trial court came to a conclusion that there was malafide on EDrsquos part after considering wrong facts and wrong datesSinghvi had submitted that the ED argued for three hours and 45 minutes before the trial judgeIn its bail order the trial court had held that prima facie Kejriwals guilt was yet to be established and that the ED had failed to furnish direct evidence linking him to the proceeds of crime in the money laundering caseThe excise policy was scrapped in 2022 after the Delhi lieutenant governor ordered a CBI probe into alleged irregularities and corruption involving its formulation and executionAccording to the ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation CBI irregularities were committed while modifying the policy and undue favours extended to the licence holdersThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever