Trial court extends his judicial custody till April 23
Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) National Convenor Arvind Kejriwal on Monday 15.04.2024 failed to get immediate relief from the Supreme Court of India on his plea challenging a Delhi High Court order upholding his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and his subsequent remand in connection with the Delhi excise policy case.
Hearing his plea, a bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta issued notice to the ED directing it to file a reply by April 24. The matter would next be heard in the week commencing April 29.
During the hearing on Monday, senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for Kejriwal, sought “an extremely short date (Friday)” to begin hearing the petition, which was declined by the court. “We will give a reasonable date… a very short date. But not what you are saying,” the court said, as it also told Singhvi to “reserve your arguments” after he continued to press for an earlier hearing.
Meanwhile, in a related hearing, a Delhi court extended Kejriwal’s judicial custody till April 23.
Kejriwal was produced virtually before special judge Kaveri Baweja of the Rouse Avenue Courts on the expiry of his judicial custody. The Court said it is extending custody till April 23 when judicial custody of co-accused (Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader K Kavitha) is also ending.
Earlier, the Rouse Avenue Courts also sent K Kavitha to judicial custody till April 23 after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) did not seek an extension of her three-day police custody and sought 14-day judicial custody instead. The CBI submitted before the court that she did not cooperate with its investigation and “deliberately gave evasive replies contrary to the evidence on record”.
K Kavitha is the daughter of former Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao.
