Hours after summons, US again flags due process in Arvind Kejriwal, Congress cases

He was responding to a question on India summoning the US diplomat over comments on Kejriwal’s arrest, and the recent political turmoil, including the freezing of the Congress’s bank account and Amnesty International’s statement that the crackdown on the Opposition had reached a crisis point ahead of elections.

“With respect to your first question (summoning of diplomat), I’m not going to talk about any private diplomatic conversations, but of course, what we have said publicly is what I just said from here, that we encourage fair, transparent, timely legal processes. We don’t think anyone should object to that,” he said.

Protests have broken out across Delhi over the arrest of CM Arvind Kejriwal. (Express Photo)

Earlier in the day, the MEA summoned senior US diplomat Gloria Berbena, who heads the public affairs section at the US Embassy, days after summoning the German deputy chief of mission, Georg Enzweiler, to lodge a strong protest against the German Foreign Ministry’s remarks on Kejriwal’s arrest.

On Wednesday, the German Foreign Ministry spokesperson, when asked in Berlin about the summoning of the diplomats, sought to dial down. “It is indeed the case that my colleague took this up here last week. In this respect, I don’t have any updates. But let me say that as you mentioned, the topic was discussed with the Indian side on Saturday and let me also emphasise once again that we – India and Germany – have a great interest in closer cooperation and work together in an atmosphere of trust. As such, I would be reluctant to talk about confidential internal discussions here.”

On the other hand, the US statement was a reiteration of the State Department’s earlier comments. On Tuesday, Reuters reported that the US State Department spokesperson, responding to an emailed query, said: “We encourage a fair, transparent and timely legal process for Chief Minister Kejriwal.”

On Wednesday, the Ministry of External Affairs’ official spokesperson, Randhir Jaiswal, “strongly” objected to the US State Department spokesperson’s remarks “about certain legal proceedings in India”.

“In diplomacy, states are expected to be respectful of the sovereignty and internal affairs of others. This responsibility is even more so in case of fellow democracies. It could otherwise end up setting unhealthy precedents,” he said.

“India’s legal processes are based on an independent judiciary which is committed to objective and timely outcomes. Casting aspersions on that is unwarranted,” he said.

This is the second time in the last two weeks that India hit back at the US. Responding to criticism from Washington on the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), Delhi had said on March 15 that it was an “internal matter”. Saying that the CAA “supports human rights”, the MEA spokesperson had said: “As regards the US State Department’s statement on the implementation of CAA, we are of the view that it is misplaced, misinformed and unwarranted.”

On Kejriwal’s arrest, India had immediately summoned the German deputy chief of mission, Georg Enzweiler, on Saturday, after the German Foreign Ministry said it had “taken note” of the development and hoped that the standards relating to independence of judiciary and basic democratic principles would be applied.

This was the third face-off between the German Foreign Ministry and the MEA in the last three years over judicial actions against India’s Opposition leaders and civil society.