Delhi High Court stays bail to Arvind Kejriwal in Excise Policy case

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday stayed the trial court order granting bail to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in the Delhi excise policy case being probed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). .Justice Sudhir Kumar Jain said that the trial court did not apply its mind to the material submitted by the ED and did not give adequate opportunity to the ED to argue its case.The Court passed the order on a plea by ED seeking stay of the trial court order passed on June 20 granting bail to Kejriwal."The Vacation Judge while passing the impugned order did not appropriately appreciate the material/documents submitted on record and pleas taken by ED and the averments/grounds as raised in the petition under section 439(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) require serious consideration while dealing with said petition. Accordingly, the present application is allowed and the operation of the Impugned Order is stayed," the Court ordered. Justice Jain said that voluminous material cannot be considered is totally unjustified and it shows that the trial court has not applied its mind to the material. The High Court further said that the trial court did not adequately address the argument on twin conditions for bail under Section 45 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). "There was a strong argument that the twin condition of Section 45 PMLA was not deliberated by the vacation judge. This court is of the opinion that Section 45 PMLA has not been properly discussed by the trial court," the High Court stated.Further, the High Court said that the finding of the trial court that there was malafides on ED's part was incorrect since the High Court itself had in earlier order rejected such a claim by Kejriwal."Most important, the ASG referred to para 27 of the trial court order where the judge talks about mala fide by the ED. 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. Trial court should not have given any finding which is opposite to the finding of the High Court," the single-judge underlined..The trial court had on June 20 granted bail to Kejriwal and ordered his release subject to bail bond of ₹1 lakh.Special Judge (PC Act) Niyay Bindu of the Rouse Avenue Court said that ED failed to give any direct evidence linking Kejriwal to the proceeds of the crime and has also failed to show that another accused, Vijay Nair, was acting on Kejriwal's behalf.The special judge had also said that the ED was acting with bias against Kejriwal.The ED had immediately moved the Delhi High Court and secured an urgent hearing in the matter..Justice Jain of High Court had then heard the matter on June 21 and ordered an interim stay on Kejriwal's bail while reserving its final order in the matter.The final order came to be passed today.Meanwhile, the interim stay by High Court was challenged by Delhi Chief Minister before the Supreme Court on Monday which termed such a stay order "unusual". However, the apex court said it will wait for the final order by the High Court and posted the matter for hearing on June 26. .Kejriwal was arrested by the ED on March 21 on allegations that he was part of a conspiracy to intentionally leave loopholes in the now-scrapped Delhi Excise Policy for 2021-22, to benefit certain liquor sellers.ED has alleged that kickbacks received from liquor sellers were used to fund the Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) electoral campaign in Goa and Kejriwal being the National Convenor of the party is both personally and vicariously liable for the offence of money laundering.Kejriwal has denied the allegations and has accused the ED of running an extortion racket.Other AAP leaders arrested in the same case include former Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi, Manish Sisodia and Member of Parliament Sanjay Singh.Singh is currently out on bail though Sisodia continue to languish in jail..Additional Solicitor General SV Raju along with Special Counsel Zoheb Hossain and advocates Anam Venkatesh, Vivek Gurnani, Abhi Priya, Dipanshu Gaba and Shweta Desai appeared for ED. Senior Advocates Dr Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Vikram Chaudhari along with advocates Vivek Jain, Mohd Irshad, Karan Sharma, Rishikesh Kumar, Mohit Siwach, Sadiq Noor, Kaustubh Sandhu, Hargun Sandhu, Nikita Gill and Rajat Jain represented Arvind Kejriwal. .[Read Order]