Delhi excise policy case: On day of release, Arvind Kejriwal is jailed again

The Delhi High Court on Friday ordered an interim stay on the trial court order granting bail to Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal in a money laundering case linked to the alleged Delhi excise scandal. A vacation bench of Justice Sudhir Kumar Jain reserved its order on a stay petition challenging the lower court order by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and said the same will be pronounced in two to three days.

The federal agency, in its stay petition filed on Friday morning, called the trial court order "perverse" and argued that the court did not hear the arguments of the ED counsel properly. It also argued that the lower court placed reliance on irrelevant material.

The lower court granted bail to Kejriwal on Thursday. In its order, the court observed it was "constrained" to "draw an inference" that the ED is "not acting without bias".


Detailed order of the trial court was made available on Friday.

It observed that Kejriwal cannot be kept behind bars until the federal agency traces out the complete money trail. Out of the total alleged kickbacks of Rs 100 crore, around Rs 40 crore have been traced out in the previous months and the remaining Rs 60 crore is yet to be traced, it said.

"On this aspect, ED has failed to clarify as to how much time is required for tracing out the complete money trail. Meaning, thereby, that until and unless this exercise of tracing out the remaining amount gets completed by ED, the accused is supposed to remain behind bars without proper evidence against him. This is also not an acceptable submission of ED," the order said.

The court also questioned the ED counsel's argument with regard to credibility of the approvers.

The ED counsel had argued (as reproduced by the court in its order), "Investigation is an art and sometimes one accused is given a lollypop of bail and pardon and induced with some assurance to make them tell the story behind the offence."

The court recorded that this is "not a potable submission". "Because if it is so (investigation is art), then, any person can be implicated and kept behind the bars by artistically procuring the material against him after artistically avoiding/withdrawing exculpatory material from the record."

The order further said, "This very scenario constrains the court to draw an inference against the investigating agency that it is not acting without bias... The effect of this submission goes to the conception that the complete truth cannot be revealed through the persons who have resiled from their previous statements."

Rather, the truth shall be established on the basis of incriminating material procured in a legal manner, it said.

"It may be possible that some known persons of Kejriwal are having involvement in an offence or being known to a third person involved in the offence, but ED has failed to give any direct evidence against Kejriwal in respect of the proceeds of crime," the order said.

It further observed that the agency has not clarified how the Rs 40 crore that it traced out during the investigation "is forming a part of the proceeds of crime".

"It seems that ED also believes that the evidence on record is not sufficient to proceed against Kejriwal and it is taking time to procure the same in any manner whatsoever to convince the court with respect to the availability of the evidence against Kejriwal," the order said.