NEW DELHI, April 28: The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear today a plea by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal challenging his arrest in a money laundering case stemming from the alleged excise policy scam.
A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta is likely to hear the matter.
Kejriwal had earlier told the apex court that his “illegal arrest” in the case constitutes an unprecedented assault on the tenets of democracy based on “free and fair elections” and “federalism”.
In a rejoinder to the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) reply affidavit filed on his petition challenging his arrest in the case, Kejriwal said the mode, manner and timing of his arrest just before the Lok Sabha elections when the Model Code of Conduct had come into play, speaks volumes about the “arbitrariness” of the agency.
Kejriwal claimed it is a “classical case” of how the Centre has misused the ED and its wide powers under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act to “crush” the AAP and its leaders.
It claimed that the ED illegally ‘picked up’ a sitting chief minister and the national convenor of one of the national Opposition parties, five days after the general elections were announced and the Model Code of Conduct came into force.
He said a level playing field, which is a pre-requisite for ‘free and fair elections’, has clearly been compromised with his illegal arrest.
It said the entire basis of Kejriwal’s arrest rests upon certain statements which are in the nature of “self-incriminating confessions” by alleged accomplices who have been given the immunity by way of pardon etc. In the rejoinder, Kejriwal alleged the only objective of the ED was to procure and obtain some statement against him and as soon as the statement was taken, the mission of the probe agency was accomplished and thereafter, the co-accused were neither arrested nor any further statements were taken.
The AAP leader claimed the malicious intent of the ED in conducting the investigation was apparent from its deliberate concealment of statements made by co-accused individuals where either no allegations were made or allegations were explicitly denied.
The chief minister said the ED, in its reply affidavit filed in the apex court, has said that one of the reasons which necessitated his arrest was that he did not remain present before the investigating officer (IO) despite being summoned nine times.In its reply affidavit filed in the apex court earlier this week, the ED has claimed that Kejriwal is the “kingpin and key conspirator” of the excise policy scam and the arrest of a person for an offence based on material can never violate the “concept of free and fair elections”. (PTI)
