New Delhi:
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will remain in jail till April 29 at least – 10 days after the Lok Sabha election – after the Supreme Court refused an urgent hearing of a petition against his arrest on corruption charges linked to the alleged liquor policy scam. The court gave the arresting agency – the Enforcement Directorate – till April 27 to file its response to the Aam Aadmi Party leader’s petition.
The blow to Mr Kejriwal’s hope of an early hearing (and possible release, to allow him to campaign for the AAP) comes after the Delhi High Court last week rejected the same petition. The court said the ED had submitted enough by way of evidence to back its claim – that the Chief Minister was involved in forming the now-scrapped policy and demanding alleged bribes of ₹ 100 crore.
Mr Kejriwal had argued, vehemently, against his arrest, pointing to the timing of the federal agency’s action; the AAP boss, a fierce and vocal critic of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, was taken into custody hours after the court refused him protection from arrest. That was after Mr Kejriwal skipped multiple summons from the ED, alleging a political conspiracy against his party before the election.
A defiant Mr Kejriwal became the first sitting Chief Minister to be arrested; weeks earlier another opposition leader, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha’s Hemant Soren, narrowly avoided that distinction by resigning minutes before his arrest by the ED, in an unrelated money laundering case.
With reference to the alleged liquor policy scam, the ED has also arrested two of Mr Kejriwal’s colleagues; his ex-deputy, Manish Sisodia, was arrested in February last year and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh in October. Mr Singh was granted bail this month by the Supreme Court, which asked the ED some tough questions, including asking why he had been jailed for six months without a trial.
The top court also wanted to know why the agency had failed, so far, to recover any of the alleged bribe money. “Nothing has been recovered… there is no trace (of money allegedly received by the AAP as bribes for allotting liquor permits to the ‘South Group’)…” the court remarked.
The ED has repeatedly claimed the Aam Aadmi Party conspired to receive ₹ 600 crore in bribes – including from a ‘south group’ led by opposition leader K Kavitha of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi, who has also been arrested – for allotment of retail and wholesale liquor permits for the national capital.
