The Delhi High Court on Friday stayed a trial court order granting bail to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in the now-scrapped excise policy case, reports Bar and Bench. He will remain lodged in the Tihar jail.
The High Court said it will pass the order on the Enforcement Directorate’s stay application in two-three days and till then the trial court order will remain stayed.
Justice Sudhir Kumar Jain passed the order after the ED moved the Delhi High Court challenging the trial court order which granted bail to the AAP national convenor.
“I am reserving the order for two to three days. Till pronouncement of the order, the operation of the trial court order is stayed,” the Court said, as quoted by Bar and Bench.
On Thursday, the Rouse Avenue court in Delhi had granted bail to Kejriwal and ordered his release. He has been asked to furnish a bail bond of Rs one lakh.
Special judge nNiyay Bindu of the court said that the ED had failed to give any direct evidence linking Kejriwal to the proceeds of crime. It also said that the anti-money laundering agency has also failed to show that another accused in the case, Vijay Nair, was acting on Kejriwal’s behalf.
The Court further said that the ED was acting with bias against the AAP leader.
“It may be possible that some persons known to the applicant are having involvement in an offence….but ED has failed to give any direct evidence against the applicant in respect of the proceeds of crime,” the judge said, as quoted by PTI.
She also questioned the ED’s silence on Kejriwal’s assertion that he was arrested in the money laundering case related to the alleged excise scam without having been named in the CBI FIR or the ECIR registered by the anti-money laundering agency. Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) is ED’s version of an FIR.
“This is also noticeable that ED is silent about the facts as to how the proceeds of crime have been utilized in Assembly Elections in Goa by AAP as, admittedly, after about two years, the bigger portion of the alleged amount remains to be traced out,” the judge said.
The order passed on Thursday was made available to the media on Friday.
Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has been accused of receiving kickbacks of Rs 100 crore from the South Group, a cartel of politicians, businessmen and others to rig the Delhi liquor policy in favour of licensees. It is alleged that the money received was used to campaign for the 2022 Goa polls.
On March 21, the ED arrested Kejriwal, shortly after Delhi High Court refused to grant him protection from arrest on his petition challenging summonses issued to him.
The Supreme Court on May 10 had granted interim bail to Kejriwal till June 1 to campaign in Lok Sabha elections, saying he will have to surrender and go back to jail on June 2. He is in jail ever since.