Delhi high court on Tuesday rejected chief minister Arvind Kejriwal's plea stating that ED has enough material in possession to have made the arrest.
The high court said the delay caused by the chief minister also impacted those who were in custody, reported Hindustan Times.
“Non joining of Kejriwal was a contributory factor & not the only factor,” the high court said.
While rejecting the petition, the high court said that ED was able to trace enough material in the form of the statements of the approval, hawala dealer and an Aam Aadmi Party candidate in the 2022 Goa election.
The court in its order said that doubting or casting aspersions on the manner of recording statement of approver amounts to casting aspersions on the judge & the court, it said.
Further, the court said that MS Reddy and Sarath Reddy gave statements out of free will. The court said it “cannot step into the shoes of trial court & conduct a mini trial”.
“The petitioner has been arrested in a money laundering case & the courts have to consider the same with regards to the law in the absence of timing of arrest. Kejriwal would have known when Lok Sabha elections would be declared and he would then have been very busy. It cannot be held that the arrest timing was decided by ED,” HT quoted the high court judge as saying.
The court also said that political considerations and equations cannot be broaden in law as they are not relevant to court proceedings.
“The matter before this court is not between the Centre & Kejriwal, but between the petitioner & the ED,” the court said.
Additional solicitor general SV Raju, while appearing for the ED, said, “Today the judge gave the judgement after seeing all the evidence and the court also said that money trail has been found. Court has done justice today and the court said that the arrest of (CM Kejriwal) is legal.”
Delhi CM is the first sitting chief minister to have been arrested. He was arrested on March 21 in connection with now-scrapped Delhi excise policy.
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