Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was sent to a 6-day Enforcement Directorate custody till March 28, a day after he was arrested by the probe agency Thursday night in connection with the Delhi excise policy case. He became the first serving Chief Minister to be arrested, after months of skipping summons by the investigation agency – nine in total – and calling them “illegal”. His arrest came hours after the Delhi High Court declined to grant Kejriwal interim protection from coercive action by the ED. The case pertains to alleged kickbacks received by the AAP and its leaders in implementation of the now-scrapped 2021-22 Delhi excise policy. Here, we take a look at the what happened on Friday: ■ Senior advocate and Kejriwal's counsel A M Singhvi on Friday brought the matter to the urgent notice of the Chief Justice of India (CJI) D Y Chandrachud in court number 1. The CJI told him to approach court number 2 presided by Justice Khanna where a special bench of Justices Khanna, M M Sundresh and Bela M Trivedi was hearing Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader K Kavitha’s petition challenging her arrest in the Delhi excise policy case. ■ The top court refused to grant bail to BRS leader K Kavitha. A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna, MM Sundresh and Bela M Trivedi asked Kavitha to approach the trial court, saying it is a practice which this court is following and cannot bypass the protocol. ■ Soon after, Kejriwal withdrew from the Supreme Court his plea challenging his arrest by the ED. ■ Senior advocate A M Singhvi, who communicated this to a bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta, said he was withdrawing the plea as the remand proceedings were also coming up before the trial court today and he would argue when the remand proceedings were taken up. ■ Hours later, Kejriwal was produced before the Rouse Avenue court, where the Enforcement Directorate dubbed him as the "kingpin" of the liquor scam case and sought his 10-day custody. ■ Additional Solicitor General (ASG) SV Raju, who appeared for the ED, told the court that the money received from the 'South group' was used to fund the Goa Assembly elections in 2022. ■ Raju further told the court that the probe agency needed Kejriwal's remand to recover the money trail. ■ Asserting that the excise policy is a scam and that it was only made to fund the Goa elections, ED said it has arrested the CM because of both individual and vicarious liability. ■ Appearing for Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi said the remand papers are an exact replica of the grounds of arrest. "They are mechanically reproducing the case diary," he said. He added that "more than 80 per cent of the people (connected with the case) have not mentioned Kejriwal or any dealings with him." ■ Arguing before the Rouse Avenue Court, Singhvi said there was "no corroborative evidence against Kejriwal". "The ED has some sort of identity crisis regarding the accused.one day it says a person is an accused, then it says a party is an accused. There is a complete confusion." ■ The court, which reconvened later in the evening, sent Kejriwal to the Enforcement Directorate's custody till March 28. Special Judge Kaveri Baweja at the Rouse Avenue court said Kejriwal will be produced before the court on March 28 at 2 pm.
