Arvind Kejriwal gets bail for campaigning

In a major relief to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal the Supreme Court on Friday granted him interim bail till June 1 to campaign in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta said Kejriwal arrested in a money laundering case linked to the alleged excise policy scam will have to surrender and go back to jail on June 2 The bench refused the request of senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi appearing for Kejriwal that the interim bail be granted till June 5AAP workers celebrating PicPTIJune 1 is the last day of the sevenphase elections The votes will be counted on June 4 The court said reasons for granting Kejriwal interim bail will follow Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and Additional Solicitor General S V Raju appearing for the Enforcement Directorate opposed the granting of interim bail to the Aam Aadmi Party AAP chief on grounds of poll campaigning saying no such precedents are availableObserving that granting Kejriwal interim bail for 21 days will not make much of a difference the bench said the EDrsquos Enforcement Case Information Report ECIR was registered in August 2022 while the chief minister was arrested on March 21 this year ldquoHe Kejriwal was out there for oneandahalfyears He could have been arrested earlier or after but nothing such thing happenedrdquo the bench told EDThis is a victory of democracy SunitaDelhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwalrsquos wife Sunita on Friday hailed the Supreme Courtrsquos decision granting interim bail to her husband as a ldquovictory of democracyrdquoand said the relief is the result of prayers and blessings of millions of peoplelsquoWill boost peoplersquos faith in democracyrsquoDelhi Congress chief Devender Yadav welcomed SCrsquos decision stating this will boost the faith of the people in democracy ldquoWe have been saying BJP and its leaders have caged the establishments of democracy This will boost the faith of people in democracyrdquo he saidlsquoHappy to see Kejriwal get bailrsquoWest Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday said this would positively impact the ongoing Lok Sabha elections ldquoI am very happy to see that Shri Arvind Kejriwal ArvindKejriwal has got interim bail It will be very helpful in the context of the current electionsrdquo she said on XAAP says Satyamev JayateThe AAP welcomed the Supreme Court decision on Friday and said truth can be troubled but not defeated ldquoThe dictatorship will end Satyamev Jayaterdquo AAP RS MP Sanjay Singh said in a post in Hindi on X AAP MLA Durgesh pathak told PTI ldquoWe welcome the SC order Satyamev JayaterdquoAgenciesSC disposes of Sorenrsquos pleaHemant Soren File picPTIThe Supreme Court on Friday disposed of a plea filed by former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren seeking a direction to the high court to deliver its verdict on his petition challenging his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta observed that the petition has become infructuous as the high court has delivered its judgement on May 3 and Soren has already challenged the same in the apex courtThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever