Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders said on Friday that the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) plea in the Delhi High Court against the trial court’s bail to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had betrayed the “panicked state” of the probe agency and the BJP, which are “trying to destroy Mr. Kejriwal’s politics of truth”.
Terming “historic” the trial court’s order, which gave relief to the Chief Minister in the money laundering case linked to the now-scrapped excise policy on late Thursday evening, Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh said the fine print revealed the ED and BJP’s “plot” against AAP.
“After the order, the ED was in a dilemma. Then, it was given orders by its higher-ups to go to the High Court. Have you ever heard of a situation where the order copy has not been released, nobody knows what is in the order, yet the EC goes and asks the High Court to put a stay on it?” Mr. Singh said.
He added that the probe agency uses testimonies that are in its favour, while “conveniently hiding” those which are not. “They [ED] have cited fabricated stories in court to destroy the Chief Minister and AAP. Is this how Prime Minister Narendra Modi is planning to run our judiciary system?” he said, adding that he hopes the High Court takes “serious cognisance” of the trial court’s order.
‘ED’s case in tatters’
Delhi Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj said the trial court’s order had “entirely demolished” the ED’s case on the alleged liquor policy scam. “The entire case was left in tatters after the Vacation Bench’s bail order, that is why the ED and Union Ministers are panicking and reaching the High Court asking for a stay on the trial court’s order,” he said.
“When Mr. Kejriwal was given bail by Special Judge Nyay Bindu, so many things were said against her. But if you read her order, she said the Chief Justice of India has been encouraging trial court judges to take up such matters, especially the cases related to the ED and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI),” he said.
Mr. Bharadwaj added that as per the court’s order, the probe agency had no evidence against Mr. Kejriwal. “When she [Special Judge Nyay Bindu] asked the ED where the leftover money trail was, the probe agency replied that they are still investigation. She then remarked that if the ED expects to keep Mr. Kejriwal in jail throughout their probe, then that is not how the law works,” he said.
“This clears the fact that no crime was committed by Mr. Kejriwal. The court saying that the ED was acting out of bias is a big thing,” the AAP leader added.
The AAP convenor’s wife Sunita Kejriwal also lashed out at the probe agency, stating that it was “behaving as if Arvind Kejriwal is India’s most wanted terrorist”.
“Dictatorship in the country is crossing such limits that the ED violates someone’s personal liberty and even immediately goes to the High Court to get a stay against the bail of an elected Chief Minister. The decision of the High Court is yet to come, we hope that it will do justice,” she said.
‘Rhetoric, excuses’
Meanwhile, Delhi’s BJP unit said although AAP leaders “excel in spreading confusion”, the high court order is still in operation, which found that the Chief Minister’s arrest was “legally correct”.
“Their [AAP’s] leaders excel in spreading confusion, but there is one fact that is clear to all of us, which is that the order of the high court is still in operation, which found that the arrest of Mr. Kejriwal had a personal role in receiving crores of rupees in kickbacks from the liquor policy,” said Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva.
Deeming the AAP leaders’ statements “rhetoric and excuses”, Mr. Sachdeva said it was an “old habit” of the party to claim that “the truth alone triumphs” when judgments are in their favour, but to question the same judicial system when the orders go against them.
“It would be better if AAP leaders understand the judicial system before hastily commenting on judgments. Generally, every investigative agency challenges the bail granted to an accused, and this is what is happening in Arvind Kejriwal’s case,” he added.
