Arvind Kejriwal now moves Supreme Court to stop his arrest in Delhi Excise Policy case

Delhi Chief Minister (CM) and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Arvind Kejriwal has moved the Supreme Court challenging his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the money laundering case connected to Delhi excise policy scam.The plea in Supreme Court has been filed through Advocate on Record Vivek Jain..A division bench of Justices Suresh Kumar Kait and Manoj Jain of the High Court had earlier today refused to grant any interim relief to Kejriwal after he approached the Court challenging the ED's summons.The High Court said that Kejriwal's plea for interim protection will be heard on April 22 with his main petition challenging the ED's summons..Kejriwal was called for questioning by the federal agency nine times. However, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) National Convenor chose to skip the summons each time.He termed the agency's summons malicious and said that the agency was being misused by the government for political motives.Notably, the ED has filed two complaint cases against Kejriwal to make him comply with the summons. The trial court granted him bail in the case on March 16.Kejriwal's plea before the sessions court to stay the proceedings in ED's case was rejected on March 15.Kejriwal then moved the High Court challenging the ED summons as well as Section 2(1)(s) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) to the extent it includes a political party within its ambit.Section 2(1)(s) defines a 'person' who can come under the ambit of PMLA.The High Court had on March 20 asked ED to file its reply to the maintainability of the petition.When the plea came up today before the High Court, the bench after considering the submissions rejected the request for interim relief..The ED’s money laundering probe stems from a case registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on August 17, 2022 in connection with alleged irregularities in the Delhi Excise Policy for 2021-22. The CBI case was registered on a complaint made by Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena on July 20, 2022. It has been alleged that a criminal conspiracy was hatched by AAP leaders, including former Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and other unidentified and unnamed private persons/entities during the stage of the policy’s formulation.The conspiracy, it has been alleged, stemmed from some of the loopholes “intentionally” left or created in the policy. These were allegedly meant to favour some licensees and conspirators post the tender process.Sisodia and AAP Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament Sanjay Singh are already behind bars in the case.On March 15, 2024, the ED also arrested the daughter of Bharat Rashtra Samiti legislator and former Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, K Kavitha in the case.