New Delhi. The Supreme Court on Tuesday questioned the Enforcement Directorate (ED) about the timing of the arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal before the general elections and sought an answer from the investigating agency. A bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Dipankar Dutta asked Additional Solicitor General SV Raju to answer questions related to the timing of the arrest. The bench said that life and liberty are very important. You can’t deny it.
The bench also asked many other questions to Raju. The bench asked the investigating agency to respond on the next date of hearing to Kejriwal’s plea challenging his arrest in a money laundering case related to the alleged excise policy scam. The next hearing of this case is likely to be held on Friday. After his arrest in this case on March 21, Kejriwal is currently lodged in Tihar Jail here under judicial custody. The apex court issued notice to ED on April 15 and sought its reply on Kejriwal’s petition.
The Supreme Court asked ED five questions on the arrest of Arvind Kejriwal and in the next hearing to be held on Friday, ED lawyer SV Raju will have to answer these questions to the court.
1. Can you initiate criminal proceedings without judicial proceedings in respect of what has happened here? No attachment action has been taken in this case so far, so explain how the petitioner is involved.
2. As far as Manish Sisodia case is concerned. If there is a conclusion for and against then tell us where is the Kejriwal issue?
3. The petitioner believes that the ambit of Section 19, which puts the onus on the prosecution and not on the accused, is too wide and thus does not demand regular bail, since they are facing Section 45 and the onus is on them. But if it has come then how should we explain it? Do we make the threshold too wide and ensure that the standards are the same to find a person who is guilty?
4- In view of the time gap between the initiation of proceedings and arrest etc., if you look at Section 8, there is a limit of 365 days. Although this is a matter of bail. The second option is to not arrest because life and liberty are important.
5. Then the timing of the arrest which is just before the general elections.
Please answer all these when the matter comes up for hearing on Friday afternoon.
The High Court had on April 9 upheld Kejriwal’s arrest, saying there was no illegality in it and the ED was left with ‘less options’ after he ignored repeated summons and refused to join the investigation. The case pertains to alleged corruption and money laundering in the formulation and implementation of the now-repealed Excise Policy (for 2021-22) of the Delhi Government.
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Tags: Arvind kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, Supreme Court
FIRST PUBLISHED: April 30, 2024, 20:13 IST