GG News Bureau
New Delhi, 13th Sept. The Supreme Court of India granted bail to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday in connection with the ongoing corruption case related to the excise policy ‘scam’ lodged by the CBI. The court deemed prolonged incarceration as an unjust deprivation of liberty.
A bench comprising Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan approved Kejriwal’s bail on the condition of furnishing a bond of Rs 10 lakh and two sureties of the same amount. Kejriwal, who was initially arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on March 21 and later surrendered on June 2, had been granted interim bail on May 10 for Lok Sabha election campaigning.
The court has instructed Kejriwal not to make any public comments on the case’s merits. Additionally, conditions similar to those imposed in the ED case will apply, including restrictions on visiting his office or the Delhi Secretariat and signing official files without the Lieutenant Governor’s sanction.
Justice Bhuyan, who wrote a separate judgment, expressed concerns about the timing of Kejriwal’s arrest by the CBI, questioning the necessity of his arrest just as he was set to be released from the ED case. He criticized the CBI’s approach, suggesting it aimed to delay Kejriwal’s bail and accused the agency of using evasive replies as a pretext for continued detention. Justice Bhuyan emphasized that keeping Kejriwal in custody despite the bail granted in the ED case would be a travesty of justice.
Kejriwal had filed two petitions challenging his arrest and the denial of bail by the Delhi High Court. The Supreme Court had previously granted him interim bail in the money laundering case on July 12 and referred the issue of arrest necessity under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) to a larger bench for further consideration.
During the proceedings on September 5, Kejriwal’s legal team contested the CBI’s argument that he should have approached the trial court for bail first. Additional Solicitor General S.V. Raju, representing the CBI, had argued against the maintainability of Kejriwal’s pleas, highlighting that similar contentions in the money laundering case had been redirected to the trial court by the Supreme Court.
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