New Delhi, June 24: The Supreme Court has not given any relief to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in jail for the Delhi Excise Scam case. Vacation Bench headed by Justice Manoj Mishra ordered next hearing on June 26 on the petition challenging interim stay on bail granted by trial court.
The apex said that in the meantime if Delhi High Court passes its order then it should be filed in Supreme Court.
During the hearing, senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi on behalf of Kejriwal said that stay on bail from High Court is unprecedented, this has not happened till date. Singhvi while giving his argument said that if his bail is cancelled by High Court then he will definitely go back to jail.
Singhvi said that suppose High Court rejects the ED’s petition then in that situation how can the days spent in jail without reason be compensated.
Justice Manoj Mishra said that the High Court is likely to issue an order on this matter in a day or two. On this, Singhvi said that after the verdict in favour of Kejriwal from the trial court, why can’t he be released on an interim basis? Then Justice Mishra said that if “we pass any order now, then we will give the verdict on the matter before the High Court.”
Singhvi said that the High Court passed a stay order on this matter at 10:30 in the morning without giving any reason. “We have presented those 10 decisions in the High Court, in which it is said that once bail is granted, it cannot be stopped without special reasons.” He said that if the High Court can give a stay order without seeing the bail order, then why can’t the Supreme Court do it, the Supreme Court can also do it. Then Justice Manoj Mishra said that if the High Court has done something wrong, “will we also do something wrong”.
Rouse Avenue Court had granted regular bail to Arvind Kejriwal on June 20. When the decision on Kejriwal’s bail was being announced, ED’s lawyer Zoheb Hussain had requested the Rouse Avenue Court to give him 48 hours to fill the bail bond so that he could challenge this order in Delhi High Court, but the Rouse Avenue Court rejected this request.
On this, ED challenged the bail order granted by the trial court in Delhi High Court on 21 June. The High Court had put an interim stay on the bail order of the trial court till the decision was given even before hearing the arguments of both the parties on the ED’s petition.
