New Delhi: The Delhi High Court accepting the Enforcement Directorate’s appeal against Arvind Kejriwal’s bail before the uploading of the trial court’s bail order, the HC judge keeping to himself a conflict of interest, and an administrative order to vacation courts to refrain from passing final orders — 157 lawyers have flagged irregularities around the Delhi chief minister’s bail stay in a letter to the Chief Justice of India.
After the single bench of Justice Sudhir Kumar Jain of Delhi HC last month stayed the trial court order giving bail to Kejriwal, 157 practising lawyers have flagged several “unprecedented practices” in a letter to CJI D.Y. Chandrachud.
Supreme Court lawyer Balraj Singh Malik and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) legal cell state president Sanjeev Nasiar are the first two signatories in the letter made public Thursday. They have also alleged that several advocates are raising concerns over their submissions not being recorded in the orders, as well as long delays in bail matters in cases being probed by central agencies such as the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
Kejriwal has been in jail in the ED case over allegations of irregularities in the now-scrapped 2021-22 excise policy since March, apart from a brief respite to campaign for the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections.
For the record, Sudhir Kumar Jain’s brother Anurag Jain was appointed as a retainer counsel on the panel of counsels representing cases for the anti-money laundering agency before the courts for a period of three years, back in February 2022.
Although he has not appeared before the court in the matter of Arvind Kejriwal, Anurag Jain was the agency’s counsel in the matter of one Akhilesh Singh, who had filed a petition before the Delhi HC to free immovable properties and bank accounts attached by the ED as a part of an investigation against him.
Speaking with ThePrint, Advocate Nasiar said that members of the Delhi Bar Association working at the Rouse Avenue Court have expressed surprise at the hasty stay of the trial court bail order in the ED’s case against Kejriwal, calling it “unusual and unprecedented” because the trial court order was not even uploaded on the website at the time the high court accepted the ED’s appeal.
“There was surprise among several members of the Bar Association over the stay on the trial court order, without the ED even having a copy of the trial court order, and then several members pointed out that the real brother of Justice Jain is on the panel of standing counsels of the agency in courts,” Nasiar told ThePrint.
Additionally, Nasiar said that in the aftermath of the bail order by Judge Niyay Bindu, there was a confidential administrative circular issued by the district judge responsible for administrative affairs of the Rouse Avenue Court, asking all vacation judges to refrain from giving final orders and instead issue a notice for listing the matter before regular benches.
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What the letter said
“As you know the Hon’ble Additional Session Judge Ms. Nyaya Bindu granted bail to Delhi Chief Minister, Mr. Arvind Kejriwal on 20.06.2024. In her order she quoted your good self, that trial courts need to take speedy and bold decisions, so that High Courts and the Supreme Court do not get clogged with cases (sic),” said the letter to the CJI.
“However on the very next day, the Enforcement Directorate challenged this order in the Hon’ble High Court. What makes this challenge extremely irregular is the fact that the challenge was done even before the Rouse Avenue Court order was uploaded. This raises the question as to how Hon’ble Justice Sudhir Kumar Jain before the order was uploaded allowed the mentioning of a challenge to said order, allowed it to be listed and most worrying ordered a stay on the execution of the bail bond. All of this was done even before the order was uploaded (sic),” the letter said.
According to the letter, “something like this has never been seen in the history of the Indian judiciary before this. And this has raised deep concerns in the mind of the legal fraternity”.
“Moreover, Hon’ble Justice Sudhir Kumar Jain should have rescued (sic) himself from the proceedings since his real brother Sh. Anurag Jain, Advocate is a counsel for the Enforcement Directorate. This clear conflict of interest was never declared by Hon’ble Justice Sudhir Kumar Jain. In fact he passed orders which are clearly irregular and whose delays have been commented upon by the Hon’ble Supreme Court as well (sic),” the letter added.
“Not just this, several advocates have complained that soon after the bail order for Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal was passed by Ms. Nyaya Bindu, ASJ an internal administrative order was issued by the District Judge of Rouse Avenue Court directing all Vacation Courts that they would not give any final orders in any matters, and would merely issue notices for regular Courts after the vacation,” the letter said.
“Such an order is administratively and procedurally irregular, but also a travesty of justice,” claimed the letter, adding, “The entire purpose of Vacation Courts is that there are urgent matters that require attention even during vacation. If such an administrative order is issued, then it defeats the very purpose of having vacation benches.”
The timing of the order also raised the question of whether it was passed after the Rouse Avenue Court granted bail to the Delhi Chief Minister, the letter said.
Speaking with ThePrint, Advocate Anurag Jain said that he has not represented the ED against any of the accused persons in the case against Kejriwal and that he has nothing to do with the orders of either the trial court or the high court.
“I am a retainer counsel of ED on a case to case basis, and I represent the agency in cases when they request me to appear for them. They have never sought my appearance in this case and nor have I appeared against any accused persons in this case,” Jain told ThePrint.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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