Delhi High Court stays bail granted to Kejriwal: AAP says ED acting like it has personal enmity with CM; BJP calls claims ‘absurd’

Moving the High Court a day after a city court granted bail to the AAP convener, the ED Friday termed the bail order “illegal, erroneous and arbitrary” and argued that it was “a fit case where stay should be granted”. Appearing for Kejriwal, Senior Advocate Vikram Chaudhari termed the order “most well formulated” and fit to “qualify in all spheres the tests of equity and justice.”

A single-judge bench of Justice Sudhir Kumar Jain said, “Arguments are heard. Order is reserved. Till the pronouncement of the order on the stay application, the operation of the impugned (trial court) order is stayed”. This means that the CM would have to remain in jail for now.

The HC said that it wants to go through the “entire record, the impugned judgment” and it shall pronounce its verdict on the stay application in “two-three days”.

Senior AAP leader and Delhi Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj said at a press conference after the HC’s decision, “What a Central agency has said in court today about the judge who granted bail to Kejriwal is shameful… The ED is not being able to submit any proof to the courts… the AAP has been saying this consistently – this has also been noted in the trial court order (granting bail to Kejriwal).”

“After the judge demolished the entire case of the ED, in panic, even before the trial court’s order came out, the most senior lawyer of the Centre has reached the High Court… The ED is behaving as if this is its personal case, like it has personal enmity with Kejriwal… this is unprecedented,” he added.

Terming the statements by AAP leaders in this regard “absurd”, Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva said the party had a habit of making statements based on such “rhetoric and excuses”.

“Their leaders excel in spreading confusion, but there is one fact that is clear to all of us, the order of the Delhi High Court is still in operation, which found that the arrest of the Honorable Chief Minister was legally correct and that he had a personal role in receiving crores of rupees in kickbacks in the liquor policy,” he alleged.

“It is an old habit of the Aam Aadmi Party to claim ‘Satyamev Jayate (truth alone triumphs)’ when orders are in their favor, but to question the same judicial system when orders are not in their favor… the country’s judiciary is independent and works in an unbiased manner based on facts,” he also said, adding that it would be better for AAP leaders to “understand the judicial system” before “hastily commenting on judicial decisions”.