Delhi HC to hear Arvind Kejriwal's plea against his arrest by ED

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court will hear Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's plea against his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday. Kejriwal has filed a plea before the Delhi High Court, saying that the ED has violated his fundamental and human rights. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief has argued that the ED has failed to establish guilt of the petitioner.

"The DOE has at the time of arrest has failed to establish that Petitioner is guilty of committing activities stipulated under Section 3, i.e., be it one of concealment, possession, acquisition, use of proceeds of crime as much as projecting it as untainted property or claiming it to be so," Kejriwal's legal team pleaded. The Chief Minister has further said that the arrest of the petitioner without any questioning shows that the proceedings against him are pre-mediated and political.

"The fact that the Petitioner was arrested without any interrogation or questioning clearly show that the present proceedings of arrest is pre-meditated and nothing but an act of political vendetta to skew the balance and level-playing field in the General Election, 2024," his legal team said. Kejriwal has sought immediate release from prison and quashing of the remand order against him.

The ED arrested Kejriwal on March 21 in connection with the Delhi Excise Policy case linked to a money laundering case and remanded the next day to the ED till March 28. The case pertains to alleged irregularities and money laundering in framing and implementing the Delhi excise policy case 2022, which was later scrapped.

The case arose out of a report submitted by Delhi Chief Secretary Naresh Kumar to Lieutenant Governor (LG) Vinai Kumar Saxena in July 2022, pointing to alleged procedural lapses in the formulation of the policy. The report said "arbitrary and unilateral decisions" taken by Sisodia in his capacity as Excise Minister had resulted in "financial losses to the exchequer" estimated at more than Rs 580 crore. This report was referred to the CBI, and led to Sisodia's arrest.

While Kejriwal was not named in the FIRs registered by the ED or the Central Bureau of Investigation in the Delhi excise policy case, his name first found a mention in the ED's chargesheet, wherein the agency claimed that he allegedly spoke to one of the main accused, Sameer Mahendru, in a video call and asked him to continue working with co-accused and AAP communications-in-charge Vijay Nair.