The Supreme Court will pronounce its verdict on a petition filed by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal challenging his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a money laundering case linked to the now-scrapped excise policy.
A two-judge bench of the Supreme Court, comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta, had reserved the verdict on May 17.
During the hearings, the apex court had asked the ED to submit the files, and stated, "We want to see the statements of witnesses recorded after Manish Sisodia's arrest, after the delivery of the judgment denying bail to him, and before Kejriwal's arrest."
Additional Solicitor General, S V Raju, told the top court that more evidence regarding the hawala transaction was found, and WhatsApp chats were also unearthed.
On this, the bench asked if these were mentioned in the "grounds of arrest" recorded in writing and given to the Delhi Chief Minister. In response to this, Raju stated, "The probe agency is not supposed to share everything with the accused." To which the bench asked, "How will you not give reasons to believe? How will he challenge those reasons?"
Meanwhile, ED has filed a chargesheet in the Delhi liquor policy case, which directly implicates Arvind Kejriwal's involvement in the party receiving Rs 100 crore kickback in lieu of the policy.
As per the chargesheet, AAP supremo was in cahoots with the members of the 'South Group' and others such as Vijay Nair to get the kickbacks to the tune of Rs 100 crore for "providing undue benefits to private entities by way of formulating and putting in use a tailor-made liquor policy". Nair, as per the probe agency, acted on behalf of the top AAP leaders, including Arvind Kejriwal.
In his defence, Chief Minister Kejriwal told ED that the co-accused in the liquor policy case, Nair, worked under Delhi Ministers Atishi and Saurabh Bhardwaj and not him.
The Delhi Chief Minister was arrested by the central probe agency, ED, on March 21 in a case alleging that a criminal conspiracy was concocted by AAP leaders, including Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, and others, to create loopholes in the liquor policy to favour liquor sellers.
