Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convenor Arvind Kejriwal will remain in jail after the Delhi High Court stayed a trial court’s order granting him bail in a money laundering case linked to a now-scrapped excise policy. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had challenged the trial court’s decision.
“The application is allowed and the operation of the impugned order is stayed,” ruled a vacation Bench of Justice Sudhir Kumar Jain.
The high court slammed the trial court’s reasoning, stating that its observation that the voluminous material presented by the ED could not be considered was “totally unjustified.”
“The observation by the trial court that voluminous material cannot be considered is totally unjustified and it shows that the trial court has not applied its mind to the material,” the court stated.
Furthermore, the high court pointed out that the trial court had not sufficiently deliberated on the twin conditions of Section 45 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
A notable point of contention was the trial court’s reference to alleged mala fide actions by the ED in its order, which the high court found problematic.
