A two-judge Bench of the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on April 15 a petition filed by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to quash his arrest in in a Delhi Excise policy-linked money laundering case.
The case is listed before the Bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta. The petition is listed at the very end of the board at item number 57.
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The hearing would be significant as Mr. Kejriwal’s judicial remand also ends on April 15. A trial court had ordered 14 days of judicial custody on April 1.
Mr. Kejriwal’s lawyers, senior advocate A.M. Singhvi and advocate Shadan Farasat, had on April 10 sought an urgent hearing of his petition.
Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud had remained non-committal while assuring the lawyers that he would look into their request for an early hearing.
April 11 and April 12 were court holidays. The April 15 listing of the case follows the extended weekend.
In an oral mentioning on April 10, Mr. Singhvi had said Mr. Kejriwal’s arrest was based on unreliable documents which were suppressed from the defence side.
On April 9, the Delhi High Court had found nothing illegal about the Chief Minister’s arrest. A single Judge Bench of Justice Swarna Kanta based its order on the prima facie finding that there was adequate material, including statements of approvers, involvement of middlemen and references that cash was handed over for expenditure in Goa elections.
Mr. Kejriwal has argued that the decision to swoop in and arrest him on March 21, merely days before the general elections, was a carefully calibrated move to create an uneven playing field in favour of the BJP.
He contended that his arrest and the case against the Excise policy was an instance of a central agency, the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) in this case, being misused as a weapon to crush the Opposition.
Mr. Kejriwal has said his name did not figure as a suspect in the prosecution complaints, even in the five supplementary ones, filed by the ED.
The Chief Minister has said the summons issued by the ED on earlier occasions were vague in nature. Their ambiguity indicated a roving enquiry intent on muzzling political dissent. He said his continued incarceration was a cock-a-snook on the federal system of governance.
