A Delhi Court on Saturday reserved orders on the Central Bureau of Investigation’s plea seeking to remand Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to judicial custody as his police custody ended on Saturday. The Court permitted Kejriwal to meet his family in Court premises.
The Aam Aadmi Party leader is already serving remand in a related money laundering case being probed by the Enforcement Directorate.
Kejriwal was produced in Delhi Rouse Avenue Court on expiry of his three-day custody period with the CBI on Saturday. The central agency took custody of the Delhi CM from Tihar prison in connection with the probe into an alleged scam in scrapped Delhi liquor policy. When the CBI first registered a case under the Prevention of Corruption Act in 2022 in the Delhi liquor policy scam, it did not name Kejriwal as an accused.
The role of the chief minister’s office has come under cloud as the CBI sleuths are examining evidence against Kejriwal’s close aide Vijay Nair who was allegedly given the responsibility to coordinate the meetings with the “south group” including the BRS leaders from Hyderabad. The AAP government is allegedly accused of tweaking the excise policy to allegedly benefit the “south group”.
The report prepared by the close aides of Kejriwal, says CBI, became the policy in which profit margins were increased from six to twelve per cent. And those papers, where certain officers refused to sign on the changes, have gone missing, explained the CBI which has in its possession several WhatsApp chats exchanged by the accused as well as details of travel meetings with the “south group” at a convention centre of a five-star hotel in south Delhi.
The Delhi CM was arrested by ED on charges of money laundering on March 21 for his alleged role in the excise policy scam. Though the trial court granted him bail recently, the Delhi High Court stayed his release and observed the trial court did not rightly discuss the conditions under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act and vicarious liability of Kejriwal under section 70 PMLA. While granting relief.
