Excise case: Supreme Court to deliver verdict on Kejriwal's plea challenging arrest by ED today

New Delhi: The Supreme Court is scheduled to pronounce its judgement on Friday on an appeal filed by Delhi Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal challenging his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate and subsequent remand in the 2022 Delhi liquor policy scam case.

A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta in May, this year had wrapped up the proceedings after hearing the arguments for four days on behalf of Kejriwal and the Enforcement Directorate.

During the hearing, the bench went through the records of the case and asked the ED to submit a chart to show what new evidence had emerged after arrest of former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia to justify its decision to arrest Kejriwal.

Kejriwal was aggrieved with the Delhi High Court's April 9 order which dismissed his plea against arrest and remand in the case.

He was arrested on March 21.

On May 10, the Supreme Court had granted interim bail to Kejriwal in case, for election campaign till June 1. He was separately arrested by the CBI on June 26, after his surrender.

Appearing for ED, Additional Solicitor General S V Raju told the court that the agency formally made AAP and Kejriwal as accused in the Delhi excise policy case in the eighth chargesheet in the liquor case.

The ED also led by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta claimed before the court that it discovered the alleged chats between Kejriwal and some hawala operators regarding the alleged proceeds of crime in the case, related to transfer of money.

The agency claimed that the chats have been recovered from the devices of hawala operators after Kejriwal refused to share the password of his devices.

"We now have direct chats between Arvind Kejriwal and hawala operators in the case," Raju said.

"Kejriwal had destroyed many phones, recovery has been made from hawala operators now with arrest," he added.

In his contention, senior advocate A M Singhvi, appearing for Kejriwal, said that the material being cited by ED now to defend Chief Minister’s arrest was not present during his arrest.

"There was no material or evidence against my client in any manner," he said.

During the hearing, the ED also claimed that there was a direct evidence of Kejriwal demanding Rs 100 crore as kickbacks in the case.

It claimed, besides the vicarious liability as the head of the AAP, Kejriwal is also directly liable as the person who played a major role in formulating the excise policy.

He said there was evidence to show that Kejriwal's stay in a seven-star hotel in Goa was partly funded by an accused.

The AAP convenor had moved the apex court challenging the Delhi HC's rejection of his plea challenging his arrest and remand by the ED.

Justifying Kejriwal's arrest in the case, the ED had told the court that he was the mastermind and main conspirator in the case.