Excise policy case: Delhi court reserves order in CM Arvind Kejriwal’s bail plea

A Delhi court on Thursday reserved its order in chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s plea seeking bail in the money laundering case being investigated by the Enforcement Directorate or ED in connection with the alleged irregularities into the now-scrapped excise policy.

The court also reserved its order in Arvind Kejriwal’s application for permitting his wife, Sunita Kejriwal, to participate via video conference in his examination by the medical board.

Rouse Avenue Court judge Niyay Bindu heard the matter for two days before reserving orders on the matter on Thursday. The judge had earlier indicated that she did not wish to keep the matter pending indefinitely while asking all counsel to be concise in their arguments.

Opposing the Delhi chief minister’s bail application, additional solicitor General (ASG) SV Raju argued that ED has documentary evidence to substantiate that part of the proceeds of crime was used for the hotel stay of the Aam Aadmi Party convenor in Goa during the Goa assembly elections.

He added that the federal agency also has documentary evidence in the form of telephone calls and call data records (CDR) to prove that co-accused Chanpreet Singh, who allegedly managed the funds for the Aam Aadmi Party’s campaign during the Goa assembly polls, received ₹45 crore from different Angadiya’s in cash and also made the payment for Arvind Kejriwal’s hotel stay in Goa from his account.

The law officer added that the token numbers recovered from these angadiyas have direct contact with Arvind Kejriwal.

“It’s not that the ED is doing an investigation in the air. There is concrete evidence,” Raju said.

The law officer further submitted that the CM had “good relations” with co-accused Vinod Chauhan, who allegedly transferred the cash bribe from the “South Group” to the AAP during the campaign of the Goa polls. “What has the CM to do with an angadiya owner who transfers cash? Arvind Kejriwal is chatting with Vinod Chauhan,” Raju said.

He added that that the CM is “directly responsible” for the affairs of AAP and thus vicariously responsible for the money laundering offence committed through the party

Regarding the timing of the arrest, Raju said that the ED did not act in a“hot haste” and arrested the CM only after the Delhi high court denied him relief of no coercive action pursuant to considering “detailed records.” “The division bench found material to be adequate,” Raju adds, pointing out that the federal agency did not arrest the CM despite him not complying with nine summons.