The Supreme Court on Monday adjourned for June 26, the incarcerated Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s plea against Delhi High Court’s interim order staying the Special PMLA Curt’s order granting him bail in the Delhi Excise Policy case, whose money laundering dimension is being probed by the Directorate of Enforcement (ED).
Posting the matter for Wednesday – June 26 – as Directorate of Enforcement said that the High Court judgment on its plea challenging the Special PMLA Court granting bail to Kejriwal will come shortly, a vacation bench of Justices Manoj Misra and SVN Bhatti observed that decision of the High Court of granting interim stay of the bail order without passing a final order in the matter, was “unusual”.
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“In stay matters, judgments are not reserved but passed on the spot. What has happened here is unusual. We will have it (the matter before it) the day after,” the bench said in its order.
As senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi appearing for Kejriwal told the vacation bench that if the High Court could suspend the bail order on a mentioning by Additional Solicitor General S V Raju, even when the trial court had not been uploaded, the top court too could intervene when the judgment has been reserved, the bench said ” If the High Court has committed a mistake, why should we repeat it.”
As Singhvi told the bench ”The High Court did not wait for the order and stayed it. If the High Court can stay it without seeing the order, why can’t your lordships stay the High Court order”, Justice Misra said, ”If High Court has committed a mistake, why should we repeat it?”
The High Court on June 21, 2024, had granted interim stay on the bail while reserving its order on Directorate of Enforcement’s plea. Kejriwal then approached the top court against the High Court order.
Questioning the procedure of staying the bail on the first day, that too on a mentioning, as unprecedented, Singhvi told the vacation bench “Suppose the High Court dismisses ED’s appeal, how does the judge compensate for the time he (Kejriwal) lost?” Singhvi said that the High Court passed the stay order without giving any reason.
The senior advocate told the vacation bench that there are several Supreme Court judgments which have held that the bail, once granted, cannot be stayed without special reasons.
As Singhvi pressed for an order on Kejriwal’s application, the bench said, “If it passed an order now, it will be pre-judging the issue. It is not a subordinate court, it is a High Court,”.
Senior advocate Vikram Chaudhary, also appearing for Kejriwal, told the top court that Kejriwal does not have any criminal antecedents and is not a flight risk.
Opposing the plea by Singhvi, Additional Solicitor General Raju told the bench that the High Court would shortly pronounce the order on the ED”s stay application and requested for adjournment of the case.
On June 20, the Special PMLA court had granted bail to Kejriwal in an alleged money laundering case arising from the Delhi Excise Policy scam. The very next day the ED moved an urgent application before the High Court challenging the bail order.
The High Court heard both the sides extensively and reserved orders on the ED’s application to stay the bail order and halted the release of Kejriwal till the pronouncement of its order.
