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A vacation bench of Justice Sudhir Kumar Jain reserved its order, saying the bail order would remain stayed till the bench pronounced its verdict.Meanwhile, counsel from both sides can file written submissions by June 24.
Additional solicitor general (ASG) S V Raju appeared for ED while Kejriwal was represented by senior advocates Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Vikram Chaudhri.The ASG told the bench that he was not given adequate opportunity by the trial court to oppose the bail plea. “The court does not hear us, does not look at the documents given by us, saying it’s voluminous. The court says bulky documents have been filed. There can’t be any more perverse order than this… Without going through documents filed by both sides, without giving us an opportunity, the matter is decided. It is the duty of a court to pass order in accordance with law. Without going through documents, how can you say it’s relevant or not relevant?” said the ASG.
In its petition, ED said the trial court judge did not grant “full and complete opportunity” to the agency to muster up all its arguments and told the ASG to cut short his arguments and only indicate the page numbers that ED wished to rely upon. The judge also asked the ASG to restrict his arguments to the points argued by the bail applicant, ED claimed. “The learned ASG on more than one occasion submitted that the bail applicant’s counsel has not argued the case on merits and, therefore, it was incumbent on ED to demonstrate the prosecution case,” said ED’s petition, but the court stuck to its stance that the arguments should be cut short.
Bail order perverse, didn’t get time to plead case: ED
The petition claimed that ED’s request for submitting a detailed note within the next 2-3 days was also turned down by the trial court with a direction to file any such note the same day or next day.
The judge insisted that she was hearing a “high-profile case” and, therefore, “did not want to reserve the order,” the petition said.
The petition said ED was being deprived of an opportunity to seek an effective legal remedy by filing an appropriate petition before HC since the order granting bail had not been made available till the time of filing the appeal. “Rather when the counsel for ED tried to enquire from the court after pronouncement of the order, the court staff was unavailable and the courtroom was empty with the lights switched off,” said the petition.
It claimed that the court staff had told ED’s counsels that the judge had given instructions not to email or upload the order granting bail, saying it would be available at 10am on Friday “effectively depriving ED of any opportunity of challenging the order prior to release of the bail applicant/accused”.
The ASG claimed before the court that the trial court judge had admitted that she did not examine the documents. He said he had not come across a judge who admits not to have read the papers and granted bail. “There can’t be a more perverse order than this. On this ground alone, the order needs to go,” he said.
Questioning the trial court’s findings, the ASG claimed ED has shown evidence for use of proceeds of crime by AAP in the Goa assembly elections and has traced an amount of Rs 45 crore.
The ED also submitted that the high court had earlier taken into account statements made by approvers while rejecting a plea filed by Kejriwal challenging his arrest.
The agency also pointed out that as per Section 45 of PMLA, a trial court while considering bail in money laundering cases has to give a prima facie finding that the concerned accused is not guilty. “It has no discretion in this case where Section 45 of PMLA is involved. The court has to give a prima facie finding that he is not guilty of the offence,” the ASG submitted.
On the trial court’s observation that ED had not provided direct evidence, the ASG pointed out that Magunta Reddy had met Kejriwal and the latter 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 says no direct evidence. Direct evidence is in the form of a statement. There is corroboration also,” said the ASG.
Arguing for Kejriwal, senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi told the court that the hearing in the trial court lasted for five hours out of which ED took 3.45 hours. Therefore, there is no question of ED being denied an opportunity to present its case, he said.
“Just because there is political antagonism and if all the commas etc are not dealt with by the judge, it gives Mr Raju the right to malign the judge. This is deplorable and sad. It should never have come from a govt authority,” said Singhvi.
Opposing ED’s submission that the trial court order granting bail to Kejriwal was perverse, the senior advocate said, “Like Alice in Wonderland, ED has its own meaning of perversity… unless every argument of ED is repeated verbatim, it is perversity.”
Singhvi pointed out that statements given in 2022 by four witnesses – Raghav Magunta, Buchi Babu, Abhishek Boinpally and Sarath Reddy – had not implicated Kejriwal. But later, Magunta Sreenivasa Reddy gave a statement against Kejriwal, and the next day, his son, Raghav Magunta, got bail. Buchi Babu also immediately got bail after he implicated Kejriwal, Singhvi submitted.
Talking about proceeds of crime, Singhvi said that not “one paisa” has been traced to Kejriwal.
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