Six months after he was first arrested in the alleged Delhi liquor policy scam, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was granted bail by the Supreme Court in the CBI case on Friday. Kejriwal becomes the fourth high-profile leader to walk out of jail in the case after AAP leaders Manish Sisodia, Sanjay Singh, Vijay Nair and Bharat Rashtra Samithi's K Kavitha.
Kejriwal's release will come as a shot in the arm for the AAP ahead of the Haryana Assembly election, where the party is gearing up to challenge the incumbent BJP and its INDIA bloc partner Congress.
The Delhi Chief Minister was first arrested by the ED on March 21 in a money laundering case stemming from the alleged liquor policy scam. He was arrested by the CBI in a corruption case on June 26 while he was in the custody of the ED.
Weeks later, on July 12, Kejriwal was granted interim bail by the Supreme Court in the ED case. However, he remained lodged at Tihar Jail due to his arrest by the CBI.
During the hearing in the Supreme Court, Kejriwal, who suffers from type II diabetes, had argued that the CBI arrested him when he was on the "cusp of release" in the ED case. Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, representing Kejriwal, termed the CBI's move an "insurance arrest" designed to keep the AAP chief behind the bars.
Singhvi, the lawyer of choice for opposition parties and their leaders in times of crisis, also said Kejriwal, being a "constitutional functionary", cannot be a flight risk and there is no risk of tampering with the evidence, which is documentary in nature, and has already been collected.
The CBI, represented by Additional Solicitor General SV Raju, claimed that a big chunk of the kickbacks received from the excise policy was used by AAP in the Goa Assembly polls in 2022.
Objecting to the bail petition, SV Raju said the Chief Minister never approached the trial court for bail, which is the usual course of action. The ASG also claimed that the Delhi High Court would get demoralised if Kejriwal was granted bail.
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