New Delhi: The Delhi High Court Tuesday stayed the order granting bail to Arvind Kejriwal in the excise policy case, noting that the trial court has not applied its mind while granting relief to the Delhi chief minister.
Arrested on 21 March, Kejriwal was granted bail briefly by the Supreme Court on 10 May till 1 June, to campaign for the Lok Sabha elections. He was then granted bail by vacation judge Niyay Bindu late Thursday evening last week. However, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) was prompt to challenge this order in the Delhi high court a day later on Friday.
Justice Sudhir Kumar Jain had reserved his order on the stay application on Friday. Pronouncing the order on Tuesday, the judge opined that the “vacation judge did not appropriately appreciate the material on record and the averments of ED”.
Agreeing with the submission made by the ED, the high court also took objection to the vacation judge not having pursued the entire voluminous record before passing the bail order.
“It is not possible to go through these thousands of pages of the documents at this juncture but this is the duty of the court to work upon the matter whichever comes for consideration and pass the order in accordance with the law,” the vacation judge’s order passed on 20 June had said.
The high court opined that the vacation judge’s observation was “totally unjustified” and showed that the trial court has not applied its mind to the material. Additionally, the high court accepted ED’s submission that it was not given proper opportunity to present its case.
Justice Jain also accepted the ED’s argument that the twin bail conditions under Section 45 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) was not properly discussed by the trial court. The provision says that bail can be granted to an accused in a money laundering case only if two conditions are satisfied — there should be prima facie satisfaction that the accused has not committed the offence and that he is not likely to commit any offence while on bail.
Meanwhile, the interim stay granted by Justice Jain on Friday was challenged by Kejriwal in the Supreme Court on Monday. While the apex court had called the stay order “a bit unusual”, it chose to wait for the final order of the high court and posted the matter for hearing on 26 June.
‘Investigation is an art’
While granting bail to Kejriwal, vacation judge Bindu of Rouse Avenue Court had observed that the ED failed to give any direct evidence against the chief minister over the proceeds of crime.
The court also took objection to the ED’s defence of use of approvers’ statements against Kejriwal. The ED had submitted that “investigation is an art and sometimes one accused is given lollypop of bail and pardon and induced with some assurance to make them tell the story behind the offence”.
“The court has to take a pause to consider this argument which is not a potable submission that investigation is an art because if it is so, 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 judge observed.
“This very scenario constrains the court to draw an inference against the investigating agency that it is not acting without bias.”
The judge had then ordered Kejriwal’s release on a bail bond of Rs 1 lakh.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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Tbe High Court says trial court didn’t apply its mind. But everybody thinks that it is the High Court which didn’t apply its mind. BJP under Modi has done a big crime against by polarizing not only the Indian society, but also most of democratic institutions includìng judiciary.
total chaos and confusion with the courts at all levels… one says give bail, one doesn’t and one says let the lower ones decide… its all drama and nothing but dragging the case for nothing… also, “he provision says that bail can be granted to an accused in a money laundering case only if two conditions are satisfied — there should be prima facie satisfaction that the accused has not committed the offence and that he is not likely to commit any offence while on bail” if so then how can one who is not accused be caught and jailed when he didn’t commit a crime? its just fun watching these courts and ED and police… jokers at all levels. this is with kejriwal, imagine what happens with a normal, not so influential, poor citizen of india!, innocents, false cases