The hearing on petition challenging arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, in liquor policy case, will continue tomorrow. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for ED, said that petition filed by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is not maintainable. The Solicitor General told court about speech given by Kejriwal during interim bail. SG said that Kejriwal said that if his party is voted for, he will not have to go to jail on June 2.
On this the court said that we do not want to get involved in this. Our order is clear that they will have to surrender. A bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Dipankar Dutta said that Kejriwal will have to surrender on June 2. The court has granted interim bail to Kejriwal till June 1 to campaign in the Lok Sabha elections. The court also said that critical analysis of the decision is welcome.
On this, senior lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing on behalf of Kejriwal, said that I do not think that he will say this, but if I go into this then I will file an affidavit against a senior minister of the central government. The Supreme Court also said that if Article 19 is violated, the court can intervene. He had earlier filed a petition in this matter but we did not hear it at that time. ED’s lawyer said that Kejriwal had never challenged the remand before.
The SG said that under Section 19 of PMLA, authority should decide whether any material exists which requires arrest of a person. He should not exercise judicial powers to evaluate evidence. The arrest is a part of investigation. During the hearing of the case, ASG SV Raju, appearing for ED, said that he was going to file a complaint against the Aam Aadmi Party.
ED said that chargesheet will be filed against Kejriwal and others soon. Two days ago, ED had given similar information before the Delhi High Court during the hearing on the bail plea of Manish Sisodia. ED said, “We are in the investigation stage, this has to be accepted as true. There is enough evidence against Kejriwal. This is not a case without evidence.”
ED said that the investigating agency is not motivated by any politics. The Supreme Court told ED that post-arrest material cannot be used to justify arrest. ASG SV Raju, appearing for ED, said that if we had really put pressure on Sarath Reddy, he would have given a completely different statement.
This is not statement of someone who has been pressured. ASG SV Raju said that he just says that he met, he could have said that Kejriwal demanded Rs 100 crore etc., the investigating agency has been impartial in this case. ED said that Charanpreet had booked a hotel for Kejriwal at Grand Hyatt.
Justice Sanjiv Khanna said that the payment of Rs 1 lakh, while you have received many other payments officially, may not be relevant, perhaps some amount remained outstanding. Justice Khanna told the ED that you have never been arrested before. Could have, the question is that the pre-arrest material should be sufficient, you cannot rely on the post-arrest material, unless you are talking about the complaint. ASG SV Raju said that this is clear. That AAP is registered as a political party under the RP Act.
ASG SV Raju said the GOM was only on paper, they had no evidence of what they were doing, Sisodia, Gehlot and Satyendra Jain were members. The case pertains to alleged corruption and money laundering in the formulation and implementation of the Delhi Government’s Excise Policy for 2021-22, which has now been cancelled. CBI and ED have so far arrested more than 14 people in the Delhi Liquor Policy case.
Whereas 6 charge sheets have been filed. Those arrested include Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, Sanjay Singh, Vijay Nair K Kavita, Sameer Mahendru, Arun Ramachandran, Rajesh Joshi, Gorantla Buchibabu, Amit Arora, Gautam Malhotra, Arun Pillai, Benoy Babu, P Sarath Chandra Reddy Aurobindo. The whole-time directors and promoters of the pharma include businessmen Amandeep Dhall and Abhishek Boinpalli.
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