CBI questions maintainability of Kejriwal’s bail plea in SC in liquor scam case
New Delhi: Questioning the maintainability of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s pleas seeking bail and challenging his arrest, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Thursday told the Supreme Court that he should have first approached the trial court for bail in the corruption case linked to the alleged excise policy scam.
Additional Solicitor General S V Raju, appearing for the central agency, submitted before a bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan that even in the money laundering case, Kejriwal, who had challenged his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), was sent back by the apex court to the trial court.
“He has approached Delhi High Court directly without going to sessions court. Under Section 439 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), both have concurrent jurisdiction. My preliminary objection is he must first go to trial court,” Raju said.
The law officer said the CBI did not issue a notice to Kejriwal under section Section 41A of the Code of Criminal Procedure as he was already in judicial custody.
Earlier in the day, Kejriwal told the top court that the CBI did not arrest him for nearly two years in the alleged excise policy scam and an “insurance arrest” was made on June 26 after he got bail in the “harsher” money laundering case filed by the ED.
Senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, appearing for the chief minister, told the bench that no notice was served to Kejriwal by the CBI before his arrest and an ex-parte arrest order was passed by the trial court.
Seeking bail for the beleaguered Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader, Singhvi submitted that Kejriwal is a constitutional functionary and not a flight risk.
Singhvi said Kejriwal was also not named in the CBI FIR.
The senior lawyer pointed out that the top court, while granting him interim bail in the money laundering case, had said the chief minister was not a threat to society.
“What started in August 2023 has led to arrest in March this year in the money laundering case,” he said, adding the top court and a trial court have already granted him bail.
The hearing still is underway.
Kejriwal has filed two separate petitions challenging the denial of bail by the Delhi High Court and against his arrest by the CBI.
The AAP chief was arrested by the CBI on June 26.
On August 14, the top court refused to grant interim bail to Kejriwal in the case and sought a response from the probe agency on his plea challenging his arrest.
The Delhi High Court had on August 5 upheld his arrest as legal, and said there was no malice in the acts done by the CBI which was able to demonstrate how the AAP supremo could influence witnesses who could muster the courage to depose only after his arrest.
The high court had asked him to move the trial court for regular bail in the CBI case.
The excise policy was scrapped in 2022 after the Delhi lieutenant governor ordered a CBI investigation into alleged irregularities and corruption involving its formulation and execution.
According to the CBI and the ED, irregularities were committed while modifying the excise policy and undue favours extended to licence holders.
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