In the Delhi excise policy case, Arvind Kejriwal, the chief minister of Delhi, is being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). On Monday, he filed a petition with the Supreme Court asking to be released from custody. The Delhi High Court’s August 5 ruling that Kejriwal’s arrest was neither unlawful nor without reasonable cause because the CBI had provided “evidently enough evidence” to support his detention and remand was challenged by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader, who also sought bail.
After mentioning the need for an immediate listing, Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y. Chandrachud instructed senior lawyers Abhishek Manu Singhvi and CU Singh to write an email request.
The appeal was submitted two days after Manish Sisodia, the former deputy chief minister of Delhi, was granted bail by the Supreme Court in connection with excise policy matters being investigated by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the CBI. The top court held that Sisodia’s prolonged 17-month incarceration and his ongoing detention in a case where there is no chance of a trial ending anytime soon violate his fundamental right to liberty and a speedy trial under Article 21 of the Constitution, even though it released Sisodia on bail by its order on August 9.
With the exception of a 21-day interim bail that was granted by the top court in May so that Kejriwal may campaign for the Lok Sabha election, he has been detained since his arrest by the ED on March 21. In the ED case, on July 12, the Supreme Court acknowledged that Kejriwal had been detained for more than ninety days and granted him temporary bail. Nevertheless, he remained detained because the CBI had arrested him on June 26 in connection with the same case.
The case against the chief minister stems from allegations of irregularities in Delhi’s now-scrapped excise policy of 2021-22, which the CBI began probing following a recommendation by Delhi’s lieutenant governor in July 2022. Kejriwal was the third AAP leader arrested in this connection. Sisodia was incarcerated since February 2023 before he was released on August 9, and Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh was granted bail by the top court in April after six months of custody.
Kejriwal challenged the findings in the high court judgment in his Supreme Court petition, claiming that the Delhi court’s June 26 and June 29 orders for his arrest and remand were unlawful and gravely violated earlier rulings by the Supreme Court that required the investigating agency to provide a notice in advance and specific justification for the arrest.
According to Kejriwal’s plea, the CBI did not cite any fresh evidence or materials in the arrest letter or the remand note to support the detention, and the sheer lack of cooperation cannot serve as a legal justification for an arrest. Additionally, he asserted that the CBI’s detention was an attempt to obstruct and block his release from custody in connection with the ED’s money laundering case; on June 20, a Delhi court granted him bail.
In the ED case, a Delhi court granted Kejriwal bail on June 20, citing a lack of direct evidence. Less than a day later, on June 21, the Delhi High Court stopped the bail. A vacation bench of the Delhi High Court suspended the bail ruling on June 25, citing its perversity and the fact that it was made without considering the evidence that the ED had given.
On July 12, the Supreme Court granted Kejriwal temporary release, pointing out that he had been detained for more than ninety days and that the matter concerned a person’s right to life and liberty. The same day, the court also referred to a larger bench the questions of the legality of adopting the “doctrine of proportionality” and the “need and necessity to arrest” into ED cases.
Kejriwal’s Supreme Court bail petition in the CBI case highlighted that he was being exposed to severe persecution and harassment for completely illegitimate and superfluous reasons. The plea further stated that the AAP chief’s detention one year and ten months after the first information report was registered was suspicious of “glaring malafide” because the evidence on which he was detained was already on file. It also emphasized that, from April 16, 2023, the day Kejriwal was invited as a witness, until his arrest in June 2024, there was nothing on file to demonstrate how, why, or under what circumstances the CBI’s opinion changed.
On August 5, the high court confirmed Kejriwal’s arrest on June 26. It stated that the investigating officer had not abused his authority and that the appropriate documented directions from the special judge had been followed for his detention in compliance with the law. The high court’s decision also upheld the trial court’s June 29 order remanding Kejriwal to judicial custody, highlighting the fact that the CBI had given the special judge good cause to seek additional remand and that the judge had given careful consideration to those reasons, which included Kejriwal’s evasive responses and “non-truthfulness” in disclosing information while under the agency’s custody.
. On Monday, he filed a petition with the Supreme Court asking to be released from custody.){kind=link}