Next hearing is on July 17. High court requests CBI’s response to Kejriwal’s bail request.
At first, a bench of Justice Neena Bansal Krishna accepted the CBI’s argument that Kejriwal ought to have first entered a plea before the trial court.
The Delhi High Court set July 17 as the next hearing date in the excise policy case and on Friday requested the Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI) response within a week in response to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s request for bail.
At first, a bench led by Justice Neena Bansal Krishna accepted the CBI’s argument that Kejriwal had to have entered a plea before the trial court first. Later, it sent out a notification stating that the argument about Kejriwal going straight to the high court would be taken into account during the arguments.
After the high court requested the CBI’s response to Kejriwal’s petition contesting the CBI’s detention and remand, Kejriwal filed the new plea. Tuesday, after Kejriwal’s legal team pushed for the issuing of a notice and claimed that there was no need or requirement to arrest him, a bench of Justice Krishna ordered the inquiry agency to make its response within seven days and scheduled the matter for July 17.
In his appeal, Kejriwal claimed that the CBI had arrested him in an effort to undermine, sidestep, and keep him from being freed from the Enforcement Department’s (ED) money laundering investigation. In that instance, a Delhi court granted him bail on June 20, citing a dearth of direct evidence. A vacation bench led by Justice Sudhir Kumar Jain stopped the bail on June 25 after finding that the ruling was illogical and had been made without considering the evidence provided by the ED.
In his bail appeal, Kejriwal claimed that he was being severely harassed and persecuted for completely illegitimate and unrelated reasons. It further stated that the evidence used to justify his detention was already in the public domain and that his apprehension almost a year and a half after the complaint was filed smacks of “glaring malafide.”
Senior counsel Abhishek Singhvi, Vikram Chaudhari, and N Hariharan, who represent Kejriwal’s legal team, sought the high court to issue a notice during the Friday hearing stating that the four co-accused were given bail in the CBI case. The attorneys argued that Kejriwal was unlawfully detained by the CBI for violating Sections 41 and 41A of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) when he was granted bail in the ED case.
According to Section 41, police may make an arrest without a warrant or a magistrate’s approval if they believe it is necessary to stop someone from committing another crime or to conduct a thorough investigation. Police are required by Section 41A to notify the person facing criminal charges before making an unwarranted arrest.
The CBI’s special public prosecutor, DP Singh, objected to the notice’s release, claiming that Kejriwal went straight to the high court, eschewing the trial court. He emphasized that in order for the high court to gain from its ruling, Kejriwal must first enter the plea before the trial court.
Singh was correct, said Judge Krishna. The advantage of a session judge hearing beforehand is also available to you. It has nothing to do with competence.
Chaudhari responded by saying that as the high court was still deliberating over the petition contesting Kejriwal’s arrest and remand, it was unnecessary for it to order Kejriwal to go to the trial court. He further stated that the trial court had rejected the argument about the alleged breach of CrPC Section 41 A.
Though it has concurrent jurisdiction to consider the bail applications, the court noted that there must be good reason for Kejriwal to approach it directly for release. It requested the CBI to file its answer. How many times has the Supreme Court ordered that the trial court return a case based on propriety rather than law? The legislation is unambiguous. Our jurisdiction is concurrent. The Supreme Court has ruled that you should not clog the higher courts when you have access to a remedy. All of them are concurrent legal jurisdictions. I’m not a lawyer. You must have a good reason for coming immediately to HC, Judge Krishna remarked.
After questioning Kejriwal for a short while, the federal agency CBI detained him on June 26. He was placed under 14 days of judicial prison until July 12 by a Delhi court on June 29.
Kejriwal is “one of the main conspirators of the criminal conspiracy,” according to the agency’s allegations in the remand note. According to the report, booze producers and dealers were called by former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) official Vijay Nair, who made demands for excessive satisfaction.
