Kejriwal did not get relief from Supreme Court, petition will be heard on June 26
The Supreme Court heard the petition filed by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. The Supreme Court has adjourned the hearing of the case to June 26. Kejriwal has filed a petition against the interim stay of the Delhi High Court on the lower court’s order granting bail in the money laundering case related to the alleged excise scam.
A bench of Justice Manoj Mishra and Justice SVN Bhatti adjourned the hearing on Kejriwal’s petition and fixed the next hearing of the case on Wednesday. The Supreme Court on Monday (June 24) orally remarked that the High Court’s method of staying Arvind Kejriwal’s bail while reserving the order on the Enforcement Directorate’s stay petition was ‘unusual’. The court remarked that usually stay orders are passed ‘immediately’ immediately after the hearing, they are not kept reserved.
Additional Solicitor General SV Raju, representing the Enforcement Directorate, said that the order on the stay application by the High Court will be passed soon and therefore, it would be appropriate that the Supreme Court adjourn the proceedings. After hearing the arguments, the bench in its order said, “We deem it appropriate that the matter be listed the next day. If the High Court passes any order in the meantime, it be brought on record.” The petition was filed against the order passed by the High Court on June 21, which stayed the operation of the lower court order granting him bail in the liquor policy case. Instead of passing any order on Kejriwal’s plea today, the apex court adjourned it till June 26 to await the final order of the High Court. The court said that it did not want to “pre-judge” the issue while awaiting the High Court order. During the proceedings, Justice Mishra termed the reserving of order on the adjournment application as “a little unusual”. He said, “Usually orders are not reserved on adjournment applications. They are passed on the spot during the hearing itself. So it is a bit unusual, we will pass it the next day.’
At the beginning of today’s hearing, senior advocate Dr Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for Kejriwal, said that the process of staying bail on the first day is unprecedented. Additional Solicitor General Raju strongly argued that the trial court’s findings were wrong and pointed out that the judge did not see the papers of the case and passed the order granting bail to Kejriwal.
Raju questioned how can the court pass an order without seeing the record? Singhvi argued that the High Court did not wait for the trial court to be uploaded and stayed the order. He said that if the High Court can stay the trial court’s order without seeing it, then why can’t the Supreme Court do so. Justice Mishra replied that if the High Court has made a mistake then why should the Supreme Court repeat it.
The High Court had said that the lower court’s order granting bail to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will not come into effect until it hears the ED’s petition challenging the relief given in the money laundering case related to the alleged excise scam. The ED had challenged the trial court’s order passed on Thursday evening. Seeking a stay on the trial court’s order, the ED argued that the agency was not given a fair opportunity to argue the case.
The ED arrested Kejriwal on March 21. Soon after, the Delhi High Court refused to grant him protection from arrest on his plea challenging the summons issued to him. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convenor could have walked out of Tihar jail on Friday if the High Court had not granted interim relief to the federal agency.
