NEW DELHI: The
Supreme Court
on Tuesday posed some tough questions to the
Enforcement Directorate
(ED) during the second day of hearing
Delhi chief minister
Arvind Kejriwal’s
petition
challenging his arrest by the central probe agency.
A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta questioned the probe agency over the timing of the arrest of Kejriwal.
“Liberty is very exceedingly important, you can’t deny that. The question is with regard to the timing of the arrest, which they have pointed out, the timing of the arrest, soon before the general elections,” Justice Sanjiv Khanna told Additional Solicitor General SV Raju, who is appearing on behalf of the ED.
According to LiveLaw, Justice Khanna also asked the ASG: “Another question is whether there being any adjudicatory proceedings, can you have criminal proceedings being initiated? In terms of what has been held in VMC or otherwise. In this case, there has been no proceeding for attachment. You have to show how petitioner was … what they believe is threshold of Section 19 is fairly high … they will be confronted with Section 45 … that is why they are repeatedly coming against arrest.”
The Supreme Court further noted that in the matter linked to former Delhi deputy CM Manish Sisodia, the investigators have claimed they have found material, but in Kejriwal’s case nothing has been brought up.
Justice Khanna also questioned the time gap between initiation of the probe and arrest. “The time gap which is taking place between initiation of proceedings and repeated complaints being filed after some time … this all has consequences. 365 days … is upper limit,” he noted.
The Bench reiterated that “liberty is exceedingly important” and asked the agency to be “prepared” with answers.
The ED has been asked to respond by Friday.
Kejriwal is currently lodged in the Tihar jail here under judicial custody after his arrest on March 21 in the case.
The top court issued ED a notice on April 15 and sought its response to Kejriwal’s plea.
On April 9, the high court upheld Kejriwal’s arrest, saying there was no illegality and the ED was left with “little option” after he skipped repeated summonses and refused to join the investigation.
The matter pertains to alleged corruption and money laundering in the formulation and execution of the Delhi government’s now scrapped excise policy for 2021-22.
(This is a developing story)
