Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Telangana lawmaker K Kavitha, both opposition politicians, have been remanded to extended judicial custody for 14 days in connection with the alleged liquor policy scam.
The decision was made weeks before the commencement of the Lok Sabha election. Arvind Kejriwal, representing the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), and K Kavitha, a member of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), are currently held in Delhi’s Tihar Jail and are scheduled to appear in court on May 7.
Arvind Kejriwal, who was arrested on March 21 by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on money laundering charges, has a pending plea in the Supreme Court challenging his arrest.
Despite a hearing on April 15, the court refrained from granting immediate relief, awaiting a response from the federal agency. Earlier, the Delhi High Court rejected a similar plea, citing substantial evidence provided by the ED implicating Arvind Kejriwal in the formulation of the now-defunct policy and alleged demands of bribes amounting to Rs 100 crore, purportedly used to finance AAP’s election campaigns in Punjab and Goa.
In a related development, Arvind Kejriwal, a diabetic, received his first insulin shot in reportedly 32 days after his blood sugar levels spiked to a concerning 320 mg/dl.
The injection was administered following Kejriwal’s petition to the court, opposed by the ED, which accused him of deliberately consuming high-sugar foods to manipulate glucose levels for medical bail purposes.
A Delhi court has directed specialists from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences to assess Kejriwal’s condition to ascertain the necessity of insulin treatment.
Both AAP and Arvind Kejriwal vehemently deny all charges, attributing them to political vendetta orchestrated by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and alleging collusion between federal investigation agencies and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.
Similarly, Kavitha, daughter of former Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, is awaiting the outcome of her bail plea on May 2 in Delhi’s Rouse Avenue Court. She contested her arrest by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), accusing the timing of the actions against her of being politically motivated.
Meanwhile, the ED’s arrests also include former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh, both AAP leaders. Despite bail granted to Singh, the Supreme Court highlighted the absence of recovered bribe money, echoing concerns raised by AAP and BRS members regarding the legitimacy of the charges levelled against them.
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