The Supreme Court on Monday said that it will hear on Wednesday Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal’s plea challenging the Delhi High Court’s decision to impose an interim stay on his bail in the liquor policy case, reported Live Law.
A vacation bench of Justices Manoj Misra and SVN Bhatti said that it will wait till the High Court order, which stayed the bail, is released before passing a judgement.
The bench also noted that it was unusual that the High Court did not release the order immediately, Bar and Bench reported. The bench also said that it will not make the same mistake the High Court made of passing an interim stay.
“In stay matters, judgements are not reserved but passed on the spot,” the top court said. “What has happened here is unusual.”
Justice Sudhir Kumar Jain of the High Court on Friday issued an interim stay on a trial court’s order that had granted bail to Kejriwal a day earlier. The High Court said that it is reserving the matter for a detailed order that will be pronounced in two to three days. The trial court’s bail order will be stayed in the meantime.
Vacation Judge Nyay Bindu of the Rouse Avenue Courts granted bail to Kejriwal on Thursday, however, the High Court halted the bail order as it allowed an urgent hearing of a petition by the Enforcement Directorate.
While granting the bail, the trial court said in its order that the Enforcement Directorate had acted with bias against Kejriwal. The central law enforcement agency then moved the High Court on Friday to challenge the bail.
After the order was pronounced by the Delhi court, the Enforcement Directorate had requested the court to give it 48 hours to sign the bail bond and challenge the bail before the appellate court. Judge Bindu, however, had refused to stay the order.
During the hearing in the High Court, Additional Solicitor General SV Raju, appearing on behalf of the Enforcement Directorate, said that he was not given adequate opportunity to oppose the bail plea in the trial court.
Kejriwal was arrested by the central law enforcement agency on March 21. The Enforcement Directorate is investigating allegations of money laundering in the liquor policy case based on a first information report filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation.
The two central agencies have alleged that the Aam Aadmi Party government modified Delhi’s now-scrapped liquor policy by increasing the commission for wholesalers from 5% to 12%. This allegedly facilitated the receipt of bribes from wholesalers who had a substantial market share and turnover.
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