Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday told the Supreme Court that his non-appearance before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in pursuance to the repeated summons and his alleged non-cooperation cannot be a ground necessitating his arrest by the central agency on March 21, 2024, and the central agency has no material to take away his liberty.
Appearing for the arrested Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal, senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi told a bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Dipankar Datta that “You (ED) have to demonstrate the necessity of arrest based on material available with the investigating agency.”
Singhvi told the bench that from August 2022 till July 2023, in none of the material including the statements of the accused questioned by the ED and the charge-sheets including supplementary charge-sheets, Kejriwal’s name figures.
“Maximum you (ED) have Sarath Reddy statement…If I don’t go for Section 50 statement, that does not give reason to believe that I am guilty,” Singhvi told the bench. Justice Khanna too said that this might not be in itself a ground to hold guilty.
At the outset of the hearing Justice Khanna asked Singhvi, just for curiosity, why you did not apply for bail. You have challenged the arrest and the subsequent remand. The senior advocate said that we have challenged the legality of the arrest and that subsequent remand.
As Justice Khanna asked that the ED had sent notices to Kejriwal to appear before it and he avoided it, Singhvi said: “I went when the CBI called. I replied to the ED notices in detail. I said I was not going to come. But today, you can’t arrest by saying you didn’t come; so we arrested you.”
To a question by the bench whether Kejriwal has been named in the charge-sheet filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation, Singhvi said that in none of the three charge-sheets and supplementary charge-sheets, the Chief Minister has been named as an accused.
Singhvi said that Kejriwal is being sought to be nailed on the basis of the much later statements of the accused turned approvers – one of them joins the ruling party, ither’s father joins the ruling alliance and the third persons gave Rs 55 crore to the ruling party through electoral bonds.
Since it remained inconclusive, Singhvi will continue his submissions tomorrow.
Kejriwal has approached the top court challenging the Delhi High Court’s April 9, 2024, order rejecting his plea against his arrest by the ED and the subsequent remand. The top court had asked the Enforcement Directorate to respond to Kejriwal’s plea.
Kejriwal in his plea against the High Court order has contended that his arrest after announcement of the General Elections is “motivated by extraneous considerations.”
Describing his arrest as “motivated”, Kejriwal has contended that a sitting Chief Minister has been arrested in the middle of election cycle and especially after the announcement of the schedule of the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
The petition by Kejriwal against the High Court order says that the statements and material relied upon by the ED against him was in its possession for the last niner months but why it acted when general elections were on.
These statements relied upon as grounds of arrest were recorded by the ED from December 7, 2022, till July 27, 2023 and subsequently no further material has been collected against Kejriwal, states the petition.
“Moreover, such statements and material were in possession of the Enforcement Directorate for the last nine months and still the arrest has been made illegally in the middle of general election 2024”, says the petition by Kejriwal.
The petition says that Kejriwal’s arrest also constitutes an “unprecedented assault on the tenets of democracy” based on “free and fair elections” and “federalism”, both of which form significant constituents of the basic structure of the Constitution.