Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday moved the Supreme Court challenging Delhi High Court’s verdict upholding his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a money laundering case stemming from the alleged excise scam.
Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi mentioned Kejriwal’s plea before the Supreme Court challenging his arrest by the ED and his subsequent remand in the excise policy case.
Seeking urgent listing of Kejriwal’s plea against the Delhi High Court judgement, Singhvi told a Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud that the arrest was based on an unrelied document and suppressed from them.
The CJI-led bench asked Singhvi to send an email and added that it will look into it.
On Tuesday, terming his arrest in the liquor policy case “biggest political conspiracy”, Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party “politely disagreed” with the High Court’s verdict and said they will challenge it in the apex court.
Speaking to a news agency, Kejriwal’s counsel Rishikesh Kumar on Tuesday said the High Court order was amenable to a challenge in the Supreme Court, and once the detailed order was uploaded, they would challenge it in the Supreme Court.
“We have challenged the illegal arrest of Arvind Kejriwal. The High Court in its finding has said that the remand order is legal and secondly, they said that they had the ground to arrest. These were the findings of the High Court in today’s decision. Because the order is amenable for a challenge in the Supreme Court so we are waiting for the order to come. Once the detailed order is uploaded, we will challenge it before the Supreme Court as early as possible,” he told the agency on Tuesday.
The Delhi High Court had rejected Kejriwal’s plea challenging his arrest and remand in the case.
In its verdict, the High Court said that “this court is of the opinion that the accused has been arrested and his arrest and remand have to be examined as per law and not as per the timing of elections. Kejriwal’s challenge to the timing of arrest before General elections in the absence of any mala fide on the part of ED is not sustainable.”
The court further said that there are enough submissions which “prima-facie” reflect that that Kejriwal was “allegedly personally involved” in the formulation of the excise policy.