Supreme Court agrees to hear Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal’s plea against arrest on urgent basis

Tribune News Service

Satya Prakash

New Delhi, April 10

A day after the Delhi High Court dismissed CM Arvind Kejriwal’s petition challenging his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a money laundering case linked to the alleged excise policy scam, the AAP convener on Wednesday moved the Supreme Court.

A Bench led by CJI DY Chandrachud agreed to consider Kejriwal’s request for urgent hearing of his petition after senior counsel AM Singhvi mentioned it for immediate listing.

plea unlikely to be listed before Monday

• Kejriwal’s petition is expected to be taken up only on Monday (April 15) when the top court reopens after Eid

Not Bond movie with sequels: HC raps ex-MLA

• Delhi HC slammed repeated pleas for Kejril’s removal as CM
• Not a Bond movie with sequels, it said, pulling up petitioner ex-AAP MLA Sandeep Kumar

“Send an email. I will look into it,” the CJI told Singhvi, who said the high court’s order was based on some “unreliable document” that was suppressed from the petitioner. However, Kejriwal’s petition was expected to be taken up only on Monday when the top court reopens after Eid.

Spelling further trouble for the beleaguered CM, Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma of the Delhi HC had on Tuesday dismissed his petition challenging his arrest by the ED, saying there was no violation of law or the Supreme Court’s verdicts. The ED was in possession of “enough material” that led to his arrest, the court said, rejecting his allegations of political vendetta.

In a related development, the Delhi HC on Wednesday refused to entertain former AAP MLA Sandeep Kumar’s PIL seeking removal of Arvind Kejriwal as the Delhi CM following his arrest by the ED and said Rs 50,000 costs would be imposed on him. “We will impose heavy costs on you now. This is the third round of litigation we are dealing with,” a Bench led by Delhi HC Acting Chief Justice Manmohan, which had earlier termed it as a “publicity” litigation, told Kumar’s counsel.

“The Governor will take a call on this. We won’t. You are trying to involve us in political thicket… Please don’t do a political speech over here. Go to a corner of the road and do that. We have passed an order, you can challenge it…. It is because of people like your client that we are reduced to a joke. The more you speak, the more costs we will impose,” Justice Manhohan said.

Meanwhile, a Delhi court on Wednesday rejected Kejriwal’s plea for permission to hold five meetings a week with his advocates, instead of two allowed to him.

Special Judge Kaveri Baweja said Kejriwal had failed to satisfy the court that he had been using the two permitted legal meetings per week solely for the purpose of discussing the pending litigations with his lawyers.

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