Hearing a plea filed by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, a Delhi court on Friday told the Enforcement Directorate (ED) that it cannot object to his requests related to his medical checkup in Tihar jail. Kejriwal is currently in judicial custody in a money laundering case linked to the alleged Delhi excise policy scam. “Accused (Kejriwal) is in judicial custody, not ED (custody). If he wants any relief, you have no role in this,” Judge Mukesh Kumar told the central probe agency while directing the jail superintendent of Tihar jail to respond to Kejriwal’s application for allowing his wife to join him via video conferencing while his medical checkups were going on. In his plea, Kejriwal had also requested to be allowed to provide his inputs regarding his health condition to the medical board which a Delhi court had in April directed AIIMS to constitute to examine Kejriwal to determine whether he needs insulin to control his sugar levels. ED Special Counsel Zoheb Hossain requested the court to call for a report from the jail authorities about providing the video conferencing access to Kejriwal’s wife. “Hum jail se reply manga lenge par aapka to koi role hai nahi isme (We will seek a reply from the jail but you have no role in this),” the court held. While Kejriwal’s plea for regular bail will be heard on June 19, a Delhi court had earlier denied him interim bail noting that his extensive election campaigning indicated that he was not suffering from any serious or life-threatening ailment. The interim bail plea highlighted fluctuating sugar levels and increased ketone levels. Senior Advocate N Hariharan, representing Kejriwal, had earlier told a court that the increased ketone levels could be indicative of diabetic ketoacidosis, a complication which could be fatal. The advocate also said tests such as PET scan, LFT, KFT, CBC and the ‘Holter test’ had to be conducted and these could cumulatively take as long as a week. The ED arrested Kejriwal on March 21 in the money laundering case linked to the alleged excise policy scam. The central agency had earlier said that Kejriwal was “directly involved in the formulation” of the now-scrapped excise policy, which was drafted “considering the favours to be granted to the ‘South Group’ — a group of individuals from the southern part of India. The ED claims the ‘South Group’ “secured uninhibited access, undue favours, attained stakes in established wholesale businesses, and multiple retail zones (over and above what was allowed in the policy)”, and paid Rs 100 crore to AAP leaders in return. The agency also alleged that bribes received from the ‘South Group’ were funnelled into the AAP’s Goa Assembly poll campaign in 2021-2022.
