Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will approach the Supreme Court against a high court order dismissing the plea against his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate in a money-laundering case linked to the excise policy, the AAP said on Tuesday.
Hours after the high court decision, the AAP said the "so-called excise policy scam" is the "biggest political conspiracy" to finish off the party and Kejriwal.
Senior AAP leader and Delhi Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj said at a press conference, "We respect the institution of the high court but we respectfully submit that we do not agree with its order and will move the Supreme Court against it." He claimed that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) have failed to recover even one rupee of illegal money in the "so-called excise policy case".
"The entire matter is not related to money laundering, rather it's the biggest political conspiracy of the country. It's a conspiracy to crush and finish off Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and AAP governments in Delhi and Punjab," he said.
Bharadwaj said they are hopeful that the Supreme Court will provide relief to Kejriwal in the same way it granted bail to AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh in the case.
Delhi High Court on Tuesday dismissed Kejriwal's plea.
"The court is of the view that the arrest of Arvind Kejriwal was not in contravention of legal provisions. The remand can't be held to be illegal," said Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma while delivering the verdict.
Besides his arrest, Kejriwal, who is currently in judicial custody, also challenged his subsequent remand in ED custody.
The matter pertains to alleged corruption and money laundering in formulating and executing the Delhi government's now-scrapped excise policy for 2021-22.
Kejriwal was arrested by the ED on March 21, hours after the high court refused to grant him protection from coercive action by the federal anti-money laundering agency.
He was sent to judicial custody on April 1 after he was produced in the trial court on the expiry of his ED custody. He is currently lodged in Tihar jail.
Kejriwal had previously asserted his innocence, claiming a lack of concrete evidence linking him to the purported scandal. However, the agency maintains it has traced the financial transactions involved.
The liquor policy, initially introduced to revamp the liquor industry in Delhi, was annulled subsequent to Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena ordering an investigation into alleged irregularities. The ED alleges that the policy facilitated substantial profit margins, with purported bribe money funnelled into AAP's electoral campaigns.
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