Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, the attorney for AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal, referred to the Delhi chief minister’s arrest by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Wednesday as an “afterthought insurance arrest.” Singhvi argued before the Delhi High Court that the CBI lacked both material and legitimate grounds for Kejriwal’s arrest, and he was right to challenge his arrest and remand in the Delhi excise policy case.
The CBI detained Arvind Kejriwal in June while he was in judicial custody related to the Enforcement Directorate’s investigation into money laundering connected to the now-scrapped excise policy. A few days after a Delhi court granted Arvind Kejriwal regular bail, the agency took action. Later, the Delhi court’s order was stayed by the Delhi High Court.
Singhvi stated today that the trial court’s decision to grant his bail in the ED’s case was the reason the CBI hadn’t thought about arresting his client until June 2024. “The CBI has not considered questioning me until June. You are in June 2022, and the scam is supposed to have happened in August 2022. “You feel the need to arrest him just two months before August, right?” he asked the judge.
According to Singhvi, the CBI cannot handle his client’s case in a way that violates the most important fundamental right—that of liberty. “The arrest is not in accordance with the legal process,” Singhvi declared.
After the Delhi court granted the CBI permission to question Arvind Kejriwal, the agency took him into custody. “This could not have been permitted by a learned trial court judge. He claims that only because Kejriwal did not give satisfactory answers could the trial court have permitted his remand,” Singhvi added.
Singhvi said the CBI failed to provide the specific provision under which Kejriwal was taken into custody. There was no stated reason for the arrest.
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