Arvind Kejriwal appeals to Supreme Court against High Court's stay on bail
PTC News Desk: Arvind Kejriwal, the chief minister of Delhi, petitioned the Supreme Court on Sunday to overturn the Delhi High Court's stay of his bail order in the excise policy case.
Attorneys for Kejriwal filed an appeal for a Monday hearing. A Delhi court had already granted bail to the chief minister in the purported excise policy issue. However, the high court postponed the bail till it made a decision regarding a plea that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) submitted to contest his bail.
The high court vacation bench led by Justice Sudhir Kumar Jain had stated, "Until pronouncement, the operation of the impugned order shall remain stayed," and that it would take two to three days to make a decision on the ED's stay request.
Additional solicitor general SV Raju, speaking on behalf of the ED, referred to the trial court's decision to give Kejriwal bail as "lopsided" and "one-sided" during Friday's high court hearing.
"Matter has been decided without considering the documents," had argued Raju. How can you determine if the papers are useful or irrelevant without taking them into account?"
Kejriwal was granted bail by trial court vacation judge Nyay Bindu on Thursday, provided he provided a Rs One lakh bail bond. ED had asked the court to give the process of submitting a bail bond an extra 48 hours, but the plea had been denied.
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The ED detained the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convenor on March 21 after he disregarded nine summonses related to the money laundering investigation into the Delhi excise policy case, which has since been dropped.
awarded the Lok Sabha elections, Kejriwal was awarded temporary release by the Supreme Court on May 10 and instructed to surrender on June 2. He was asked not to go to the Delhi Secretariat and the Office of the Chief Minister.
After the lieutenant governor of Delhi requested a CBI investigation into suspected irregularities and corruption concerning the program's creation and implementation, the excise policy was abandoned in 2022.