Arvind Kejriwal denied bail as Delhi High Court criticises trial court's decision

PTC News Desk: Arvind Kejriwal, the national convenor of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the chief minister of Delhi, will remain behind bars after the Delhi high court granted the Enforcement Directorate's (ED) appeal against a trial court's decision to grant him bail in a money laundering case involving an excise policy that has since been discontinued.

The vacation bench of Justice Sudhir Kumar Jain declared, "The application is allowed and the operation of the impugned order is stayed." The high court declared that the trial court's conclusion that the copious amount of evidence provided by the ED could not be taken into account was "totally unjustified."

The court stated, "The trial court's observation that extensive material cannot be considered is completely unjustified and indicates that the trial court has not given the material any thought."

The high court further pointed out that the vacation judge did not give the twin requirements of Section 45 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) enough thought.

The trial court's reference in paragraph 27 of its ruling to the ED's purportedly mala fide acts was a major area of disagreement.

Justice Jain stated that the trial court ought not to have reached a different conclusion, adding, "But this court is of the opinion that a coordinate bench of this court has said there was no mala fide on the part of the ED."

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In a money laundering case, Kejriwal was taken into custody by the financial crime-fighting agency on March 21. Later, in order to allow him to campaign in the Lok Sabha elections, the Supreme Court granted him temporary bail till June 1. On June 2, after the temporary release period expired, Kejriwal turned himself in at Tihar Jail.

On June 20, Kejriwal was granted bail by Special Judge Niyay Bindu, who was sitting in as the vacation judge. He was also ordered to be released on a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh and subject to a number of conditions, including not trying to obstruct the investigation or influence the witnesses. In the money laundering case, the court ruled that the investigation team had not shown concrete proof connecting him to the proceeds of crime.

In a high court petition, the ED claimed that the bail ruling was "perverse," "one-sided," and "wrong-sided," and that the conclusions were based on unrelated data.

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