Kejriwal bail: Trial court order 'perverse', judge never read documents, ED tells Delhi HC

Hearing a plea by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday (June 21) challenging the trial court's bail order, the Delhi high court stayed the lower court's order, which had yesterday granted AAP chief bail in the money laundering case linked to the scrapped excise policy.

The Delhi high court has reserved its order after hearing both sides.

Meanwhile, media reports, said that calling the trial court order “perverse”, the additional solicitor general SV Raju, who is representing the ED, told the high court that he was not given the "full opportunity" to argue his case.

According to Raju, the matter was decided in the trial court without going through the documents filed by both sides. He further said that he was not given opportunity or sufficient time by the trial court to argue the case or to file written submissions.

Raju alleged that the judge, who referred to the documents submitted to him as “bulky” was in a hurry to conduct the hearing and disposed of the case. He said it was on record that the judge called the documents submitted "bulky" and refused to go through them.

"A judge who admits that (they) haven't read the papers and grants bail, there cannot be greater perversity than this. This order has to go on this finding alone," Raju stressed.

Further Raju told the high court that ED gave all the evidence against Kejriwal but the judge ignored them. Reading from the trial court’s judgement, he said he was “shocked” that despite submitting the written note, the court was saying ED had not been able to prove its case.

Moreover, Raju pointed out that they had shown all there is to show that he (Kejriwal) had a role in the demand for ₹100 crore. “Yet the judge says no direct evidence. Direct evidence is in the form of a statement. There is corroboration also," he added.

He also slammed the trial court for giving bail on the grounds that Kejriwal holds a constitutional chair. He said it is unheard of that if he is a chief minister he should be granted bail. That means, every minister will be granted bail, he mocked.

Raju therefore urged the high court to stay the order citing Section 45 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

Meanwhile, senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for Kejriwal, accused the  the ASG of limiting the argument to one small aspect by describing the order as perverse. "Like Alice in Wonderland, ED has its own understanding of perversity," Singhvi said.

Singhvi said "not one paisa" was traced to Arvind Kejriwal. He said that for ED, Article 21 is non-existent and the liberty of a person is "very, very low" in the eyes of the ED, if it exists at all.

Senior advocate Vikram Chaudhary also criticised ED's stand which is very much like 'my way or the highway'.