Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for Kejriwal, said his arrest was nothing more than an “insurance arrest”, implying that the CBI arrested him only to ensure that even if the CM gets bail in the ED case, he remains behind bars in the CBI case.
The CBI lawyer claimed that the Punjab government, at the behest of Kejriwal, has denied sanction to prosecute some state officials who allegedly pressurised the owner of a Punjab-based distillery to comply with alleged bribe demands. The lawyer said the investigation in this regard is stalled as the AAP government has not given sanction under Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The court verbally asked the CBI counsel whether the distillery owner was a witness. The counsel replied in the negative and said that the Goa witnesses had refused to come forward to record their statement before Kejriwal was arrested, adding that the witnesses recorded their statements only after Kejriwal’s arrest. “If Kejriwal is released on bail, the witnesses may turn hostile.”
The CBI lawyer opposed Kejriwal’s pleas, arguing that he had bypassed the trial court and had directly approached the Supreme Court. The lawyer contended that Kejriwal had failed to show that his case was exceptional and warranted a direct hearing by the Supreme Court. The lawyer said that granting bail to Kejriwal would amount to demoralising the Supreme Court. But the Supreme Court did not agree with this contention.
Singhvi said it would be unfair to relegate Kejriwal back to the trial court when the issues arising in the present bail case have been discussed at length before the trial court in a related matter. He added that almost all other accused arrested by the ED and CBI have been released on bail except Kejriwal.
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