No interim relief for Arvind Kejriwal from Delhi High Court; ED asked to respond by April 2

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday refused to pass any interim order to release Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal who was arrested and is under the custody of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with a money laundering case linked to the Delhi Excise Policy scam. [Arvind Kejriwal v Directorate of Enforcement].Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma issued notice on a plea by Kejriwal challenging his arrest by the agency. The Court observed that given the nature of the reliefs sought in Kejriwal's petition, orders cannot be passed without hearing the ED."Declining this opportunity would amount to denial of fair hearing as well as violation of one of the principles of natural justice i.e., audi- alteram partem, which is applicable to both the parties and not one," the Court said.The Court, therefore, issued notice on the Delhi CM's plea for interim relief but declined to pass any interim order.Justice Sharma observed that granting the relief in interim application will amount to granting final relief."This Court remains conscious of the fact that to reach a conclusion as to whether the petitioner herein is entitled to immediate release or not, this Court will necessarily have to decide the issues raised in the main petition, as those issues are the edifice of arguments of the learned Senior Counsel for the petitioner seeking immediate release of the petitioner," the Court order stated.Accordingly, the Court granted ED time till April 2 to respond to Kejriwal's interim plea seeking release from ED custody and posted the matter for further consideration on April 3..Arguments in the matter were made earlier today by Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi for Kejriwal and Additional Solicitor General (ASG) SV Raju for the ED. .Kejriwal was arrested by the ED in connection with the Delhi Excise Policy case on March 21. The case is rooted in a 2022 complaint filed by Delhi's Lieutenant General, VK Saxena alleging irregularities in the framing of the Delhi Excise Policy for 2021-22.The complaint alleged that a criminal conspiracy had been hatched by leaders of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAM), including former Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and other unidentified and unnamed private persons/ entities at the stage of the excise policy’s formulation.The conspiracy, it was alleged, involved loopholes “intentionally” left or created in the policy. These loopholes were allegedly meant to favour some liquor licensees and conspirators after the tender process.Kejriwal's arrest in the case marked the first instance in India where a sitting Chief Minister was put behind bars. Deputy CM Sisodia and AAP Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament Sanjay Singh are already behind bars in the same case. On March 15, the ED also arrested the daughter of Bharat Rashtra Samiti legislator and former Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, K Kavitha in the case..Can Arvind Kejriwal run the Delhi government while in custody? Legal experts weigh in.Hours after his arrest, Kejriwal's legal team filed a plea before the Supreme Court challenging the ED's move. However, this petition was eventually withdrawn from the Supreme Court on the morning of March 22.Kejriwal was then produced before Delhi's Rouse Avenue Court which remanded him to ED custody till March 28. Kejriwal then filed the present petition before the High Court challenging his arrest and remand.In this plea, Kejriwal has contended that the Central government was misusing the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) to create a non-level playing field during the upcoming Parliamentary elections. The Central government is trying to skew the electoral process in the favour of the ruling party at the Centre (Bharatiya Janata Party), which controls the ED through the Ministry of Finance, Kejriwal has alleged. .Senior Advocates Dr Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Vikram Chaudhari and Amit Desai along with advocates Vivek Jain, Mohd Irshad, Rajat Bharadwaj, Shadan Farasat, Karan Sharma, Rajat Jain, Mohit Siwach, Kaustubh Khanna and Amit Bhandari appeared for Kejriwal.ED was represented through Additional Solicitor General (ASG) SV Raju, Special Counsel Zoheb Hossain, Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) Simon Benjamin along with advocates Annam Venkatesh, Vivek Gurnani, Arkaj Kumar, Hitharth Raja, Abhipriya, Vivek Gaurav, Kanishk Maurya, Anand Kirti and Shweta Desai. .[Read Order]