A vacation bench of the Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected the urgent hearing for an extension of the bail plea of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in the LiquorGate scandal case.
After hearing the plea seeking a seven-day extension of interim bail on medical grounds, the bench stressed that the case had already been deliberated upon, with the verdict currently reserved. It said the CJI would determine the final course of action for the case’s listing.
A vacation bench comprising Justices JK Maheshwari and KV Viswanathan took note of the submissions of senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, appearing for the chief minister, and said the decision on the listing of the interim plea can be taken by the “Honourable CJI” because the judgement has been reserved in the main matter.
The bench asked Singhvi why the plea of Kejriwal was not mentioned for urgent listing last week when Justice Dipankar Datta, one of the judges of the main bench headed by Justice Sanjiv Khanna which had granted the interim bail to the chief minister, was sitting on the vacation bench.
Kejriwal has sought extension of his interim bail by seven days to undergo a host of medical tests, including a PET-CT scan in view of his “sudden and unexplained weight loss, coupled with high ketone levels”, which are indicative of kidney, serious cardiac ailments and even cancer.
The chief minister, in his fresh plea filed on May 26, said he will surrender before jail authorities on June 9 instead of June 2, the scheduled date for his return to prison. The top court had on May 10 granted 21-day interim bail to the chief minister, who was arrested in a money laundering case linked to the excise policy ‘scam’, to enable him to campaign for the Lok Sabha polls.
It had directed that Kejriwal shall surrender on June 2, a day after the last phase of the seven-phase poll gets over. The matter relates to the alleged corruption and money laundering in the formulation and execution of the Delhi government’s now-scrapped excise policy for 2021-22.
(With agency inputs)
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