Arvind Kejriwal moves Supreme Court against Delhi HC stay on his bail

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday moved the Supreme Court against Delhi high court stay on his bail order in the excise policy case.

Kejriwal’s lawyers appealed for a hearing on Monday. Earlier, the chief minister was granted bail in the alleged excise policy case in a Delhi court. But the high court stayed the bail till it gives its order on a plea filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) challenging his bail.

“Till pronouncement, the operation of the impugned order shall remain stayed,” the high court vacation bench of Justice Sudhir Kumar Jain had said, while adding it would take 2-3 days to pronounce the order on ED’s stay application.

During the hearing in the high court on Friday, additional solicitor general SV Raju, while appearing for ED, had termed the trial court order granting bail to Kejriwal as ‘lopsided’ and ‘one sided’.

Raju had argued,”Matter has been decided without considering the documents. Without considering the documents, how can you come to the finding that they are relevant or irrelevant.”

The trial court’s vacation judge Nyay Bindu on Thursday had granted bail to Kejriwal on furnishing bail bond of ₹one lakh. The court had refused the request of ED to postpone the process of filing a bail bond for 48 hours.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convenor was arrested by the ED on March 21 after he skipped nine summonses in connection with the agency’s money laundering probe into the now scrapped Delhi excise policy case.

Kejriwal was granted interim bail by the Supreme Court on May 10 given Lok Sabha polls and was told to surrender on June 2. He was asked not to visit the Office of the Chief Minister and the Delhi Secretariat.

The excise policy was scrapped in 2022 after the Delhi lieutenant governor ordered a CBI probe into alleged irregularities and corruption involving its formulation and execution.