New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Friday commenced hearing on the ED’s plea challenging the trial court order granting bail to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in the money laundering case linked to the alleged excise scam.
A vacation bench of Justice Sudhir Kumar Jain is hearing the arguments advanced by Additional Solicitor General SV Raju on behalf of the Enforcement Directorate.
Thereafter, the court will hear arguments on behalf of Kejriwal’s lawyers.
The ED has also sought a stay in the trial court’s order.
The division bench said the trial court order shall not be given effect to till the high court hears the matter.
Delhi High Court earlier on Friday stayed the release of Delhi Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal, from jail in the Delhi liquor case and said it would conduct a detailed hearing later today to the ED’s appeal, challenging the rouse avenue court’s order of granting him bail.
“The order won’t be given effect to, until we hear it,” the HC’s two-judge vacation bench, led by Justice Sudhir Kumar Jain and Justice Ravinder Dudeja said.
Commencing his arguments, Raju argued that the trial court’s order, which has been made available today, is “perverse”.
“We are not given a proper opportunity to be heard. There can’t be a more perverse order than this,” he said.
Earlier before the HC stayed the lower court’s order, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) moved the High Court’s vacation bench challenging the trial court order granting bail to Delhi Chief Minister, Kejriwal in Delhi liquor policy case.
The lawyer for ED, Additional Solicitor General (ASG) SV Raju, mentioned the matter before the Delhi HC and sought an immediate hearing and stay the lower court’s order by citing that the agency was not given an opportunity to argue its case before the trial court.
“I am moving for an urgent stay (yesterday’s lower court’s order).The order was pronounced on July 20 at 8pm. The order is not uploaded. We were not given a clear opportunity to oppose the (Kejriwal’s) bail,” Raju said.
After hearing this, the HC stayed the rouse avenue court’s bail order granting relief to Kejriwal.
On July 20, in a major relief to Kejriwal, Rouse Avenue Court’s Vacation Judge, in New Delhi, Niyay Bindu, passed the order, and had granted him bail in the Delhi liquor case. Kejriwal is the prime accused in the now scrapped Delhi liquor case. The court granted Kejriwal bail after directing him to furnish a personal bail bond of Rs 1 lakh.
Soon after the pronouncement of the order by Judge Bindu,the ED, which is probing the Delhi liquor case along with the CBI, requested the court to give 48 hours to sign the bail bond so that the order may be challenged by the probe agency before the appellate court.
The judge, however, did not allow the prayer of the ED and refused to stay the order. It ordered that the bail bond is to be produced before the duty judge by Friday.
The trial court also made it clear to the ED that there was no stay on the bail order.
Earlier on May 10, the Supreme Court in its order granted bail to Kejriwal till June 1 to participate in election campaigns, and asked him to surrender on June 02, while imposing certain conditions on him.
He was in Tihar jail since March 21, for his alleged involvement in the Delhi liquor case.
