The Supreme Court on Friday granted interim bail to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in a money-laundering case connected to the Delhi liquor policy, filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). Despite this, Arvind Kejriwal remains in jail due to ongoing questioning by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in a separate case.
A bench consisting of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta delivered the judgment. The court noted that Kejriwal has already been incarcerated for over 90 days while granting him interim bail in the excise policy case.
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Arvind Kejriwal, who also leads the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), was arrested on March 21 by the ED in relation to the alleged Delhi liquor policy scam. In his petition, the 55-year-old challenged the Delhi High Court’s April 9 order, which refused to grant him relief.
The high court upheld the arrest of Arvind Kejriwal, stating that there was no illegality in it and that the central probe agency had “little option” after he repeatedly ignored summonses and refused to join the investigation.
The ED and CBI are both investigating the money laundering aspect of the now-defunct Delhi liquor policy. Introduced in November 2021, the policy saw the Delhi government withdrawing from the retail sale of liquor, allowing private licensees to run stores.
By July 2022, Delhi Chief Secretary Naresh Kumar highlighted significant violations in the policy and alleged “undue benefits” to liquor licensees, leading to the policy’s scrapping in September of the same year.
The CBI claims that liquor companies were involved in framing the excise policy, which would have allowed them a 12 percent profit margin. According to the CBI, a liquor lobby known as the “South Group” paid kickbacks amounting to Rs 100 crore to the AAP, with part of this amount being routed to public servants. The Enforcement Directorate has accused the parties involved of laundering these kickbacks.
