While reserving its order, the vacation bench of Justice Sudhir Kumar Jain said that Bail Order There will be a stay on this till the bench pronounces its verdict. Meanwhile, the lawyers of both the sides can file written arguments by June 24.
Additional Solicitor General (ASG) SV Raju appeared for the ED, while Kejriwal was represented by senior advocates Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Vikram Choudhary. The ASG told the bench that they were not given adequate opportunity by the trial court to oppose the bail plea. “The court did not hear us, did not see the documents given by us, saying it is very voluminous. The court says very voluminous documents have been filed. There cannot be a more perverse order than this… Without seeing the documents filed by both the parties, without giving us an opportunity, the case was decided. It is the duty of the court to pass an order in accordance with the law. Without seeing the documents, how can you say it is relevant or irrelevant?” the ASG said.
In its plea, the ED said the trial court judge did not give the agency a “full and complete opportunity” to present all its arguments and asked the ASG to make his submissions short and indicate only the page numbers on which the ED wishes to rely. The ED claimed the judge also asked the ASG to restrict his submissions to the points made by the bail applicant. “The learned ASG on more than one occasion stated that counsel for the bail applicant had not argued the merits of the case and therefore it was necessary for the ED to demonstrate the prosecution’s case,” the ED plea said, but the court stuck to its stand that the arguments should be short.
Bail order wrong, did not get time to plead the case: ED
The plea claimed that the ED’s request to submit a detailed note within the next 2-3 days was also rejected by the trial court and directed to file any such note on the same day or the next.
The petition said the judge stressed that she was hearing a “high-profile case” and hence “she did not want to reserve her order.”
The petition said that the ED was being denied the opportunity to seek effective legal remedy by filing an appropriate petition before the high court as the order granting bail was not made available by the time the appeal was filed. “When the ED counsel tried to approach the court after the order was pronounced, the court staff was not available and the court room was empty and the lights were off,” the petition said.
It claimed that the court staff had informed the ED lawyers that the judge had directed not to email or upload the order granting bail, saying it would be available at 10 am on Friday, “thereby depriving the ED of any opportunity to challenge the order before the release of the bail applicant/accused”.
The ASG claimed before the court that the trial court judge has admitted that he did not examine the documents. He said he did not find any judge who admitted that he did not read the papers and granted bail. “There cannot be a more perverse order than this. On this ground alone, the order should be set aside,” he said.
Questioning the trial court’s findings, the ASG claimed that the ED has produced evidence of use of proceeds of crime by the AAP in the Goa Assembly elections and has unearthed an amount of Rs 45 crore.
The ED also said that the high court had earlier taken into account the statements of government witnesses while dismissing the plea challenging Kejriwal’s arrest.
The agency also pointed out that as per section 45 of PMLA, while considering bail in money laundering cases, the trial court has to give a prima facie finding that the accused concerned is not guilty. “In this case where section 45 of PMLA is involved, it has no discretion. The court has to give a prima facie finding that he is not guilty of the offence,” the ASG said.
On the trial court’s observation that the ED has not produced direct evidence, the ASG pointed out that Magunta Reddy had met Kejriwal and Kejriwal had demanded Rs 100 crore as bribe. “We have shown all this to prove that he had a role in the demand of Rs 100 crore. Yet the judge said there is no direct evidence. Direct evidence is in the form of statements. There is also corroboration,” the ASG said.
Arguing on behalf of Kejriwal, senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi told the court that the trial in the trial court lasted for five hours, out of which the ED took 3.45 hours. He said that therefore there is no question of not giving the ED a chance to present its side.
“Just because there is political opposition and if all the commas etc are not dealt with by the judge, it gives Mr Raju the right to defame the judge. This is reprehensible and sad. This should never have come from a government official,” Singhvi said.
Opposing the ED’s contention that the trial court order granting bail to Kejriwal was perverse, the senior advocate said, “Like Alice in Wonderland, ED too has a perverse meaning… unless every argument of the ED is repeated verbatim, it is perverse.”
Singhvi pointed out that the statements given by four witnesses in 2022 – Raghav Magunta, Buchi Babu, Abhishek Boinpalli and Sarath Reddy – did not implicate Kejriwal. But later Magunta Srinivas Reddy gave a statement against Kejriwal and his son Raghav Magunta got bail the next day. Singhvi said that Buchi Babu also got bail immediately after implicating Kejriwal.
Talking about the proceeds of crime, Singhvi said that not a single penny has been found with Kejriwal.
