The Delhi High Court on Thursday sought the response of the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) on a petition filed by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal in connection with the Delhi Liquor Policy scam case.
The Delhi High Court on Thursday sought the response of the Directorate of Enforcement on a petition filed by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal challenging a trial court order that took cognizance of the ED’s charge sheet against him in a money laundering case related to the Delhi liquor policy scam case.
The single-judge Bench of Justice Manoj Kumar Ohri granted time to the national agency to respond to the plea. However, the Court refused to pass any order on the stay of application.
Appearing for the national agency, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta submitted that there was a sanction for prosecution and sought time to file an affidavit in the matter.
Representing Kejriwal, Senior Advocate N Hariharan contended that the seventh supplementary charge sheet filed by the national agency naming Kejriwal as an accused was ‘verbatim same’ as the sixth supplementary charge sheet.
He said it was filed without any fresh material collected during the probe, adding that even the witnesses were the same in both charge sheets.
Objecting to the submission, SG contended that it was factually incorrect. Further investigation was conducted by ED, which was rejected by the trial court.
Hariharan submitted that the trial court never went into the said aspect at all.
When Hariharan pressed for the dismissal of the stay application, the High Court rejected the request and listed the matter for further hearing on December 20.
Kejriwal has challenged the impugned order on the ground that the impugned seventh prosecution complaint filed qua him was without jurisdiction, as the same was filed without any fresh material collected during the probe but merely by re-evaluating the already collected material, which was impermissible in the eyes of the law.
As per the former Delhi Chief Minister, further investigation conducted by the Directorate of Enforcement was without jurisdiction as no leave of the Trial Court was granted in terms of the law laid down in Vinay Tyagi vs Irshad Ali (2013) 5 SCC 762 & Vinubhai Haribhai Malaviya vs State of Gujarat (2019) 17 SCC 1.
The petition further submitted that the impugned order, taking cognisance of the seventh supplementary charge sheet was also bad in law, as there was no sanction under Section 197 of CrPC qua Kejriwal.
The Court had recently issued notice in Kejriwal’s plea challenging the maintainability of ED’s complaint in the case. He has also challenged a trial court order that dismissed his plea challenging the summons issued to him on ED’s complaint.
Kejriwal has been granted bail in both ED and CBI cases connected to the liquor policy case.
He was formally arrested by CBI on June 26, while he was in custody of the Enforcement Directorate in the money laundering case. Senior Advocate Rebecca M John also appeared for Kejriwal.