SC reserves verdict on Arvind Kejriwal’s pleas

The Supreme Court has reserved its verdict on pleas filed by Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal seeking bail and challenging his arrest by CBI for his alleged involvement in the Delhi excise policy case.

Senior lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for Kejriwal, said his arrest was nothing but an “insurance arrest”, implying that CBI arrested him only to ensure that even if the CM gets bail in the ED case, he remains behind bars in CBI case.

The CBI counsel alleged the Punjab government, at Kejriwal’s behest, has denied sanction to prosecute some state officials who allegedly arm-twisted the owner of a Punjab-based distillery to comply with the alleged bribe demands. The counsel said the probe regarding that is stalled since the AAP government there hasn’t given sanction under Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

The bench verbally asked CBI counsel whether the distillery owner was a witness. Replying in the negative, the counsel said witnesses in Goa had refused to come forward to record their statement before Kejriwal was arrested, adding the witnesses recorded their statements only after Kejriwal’s arrest. “If Kejriwal is released on bail, the witnesses may turn hostile.”

The CBI counsel objected to Kejriwal’s pleas, arguing that he had bypassed the trial court and straight away approached SC. The counsel contended that Kejriwal has failed to prove that his is an exceptional case which warrants a direct hearing from SC. The counsel said grant of bail to Kejriwal would amount to demoralising high court. But SC disagreed with this contention.

Singhvi said it would be unfair to relegate Kejriwal back to trial court when issues arising in the present bail case have been extensively argued before the trial court in a related matter. He added almost every other accused arrested by ED and CBI have been given bail, except Kejriwal.