Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was granted bail by the Supreme Court of India on Friday in the case registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in connection with the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy.
The top Aam Aadmi Party leader, Kejriwal will now be able to walk out of jail as he has been already granted bail in the case registered against him in Delhi Excise Policy and money laundering by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
In his judgment Justice Surya Kant ruled that the prolonged imprisonment of the Delhi CM constituted an “unjust deprivation of liberty” but upheld the legality of the arrest concluding that there were no procedural irregularities. In contrast, Justice Ujjal Bhuyan deemed the CBI’s arrest of Mr. Kejriwal as “unjustified.”
The top court however barred Mr. Kejriwal from visiting the Chief Minister’s office or the Delhi Secretariat as part of bail conditions imposed. He was also ordered not to make any public comment on the merits of the case.
Calling CBI the ‘premier probe agency of the country’, Justice Bhuyan said that the agency must be seen to act above the board. “Every effort should be seen that arrest is not made in a high-handed manner, especially in a democracy. The CBI should work to lose the perception that it is a “caged parrot”. It should be in fact seen as an “uncaged parrot”, he said.
During the proceedings, senior advocate A.M. Singhvi appearing for the AAP leader argued that Mr. Kejriwal being “a constitutional functionary, cannot be a flight risk” and there is no risk of tampering with the evidence which is documentary in nature and has already been collected by the central agency.
Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal was arrested by the ED on March 21 in connection with a money laundering case related to the now-defunct Delhi excise policy. Subsequently, on June 26, the CBI arrested him in a corruption case related to the alleged scam. Although the top court granted him interim bail in the money laundering case on July 12, he could not be released from jail due to the CBI’s corruption case.
