Judge was in hurry, didn't give prosecutor opportunity to oppose Kejriwal's bail: ED to SC
ED on Wednesday told the Supreme Court that the trial court judge was in a «hurry» and did not afford a reasonable opportunity to the prosecutor to oppose Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's bail in a money laundering case linked to the alleged excise scam. The federal probe agency said the June 20 order of the trial court granting regular bail to Kejriwal was «perverse» for non-compliance of prerequisite mandatory conditions under section 45 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
A vacation bench of Justice Manoj Misra and Justice SVN Bhatti took on record the Enforcement Directorate's reply affidavit filed in Kejriwal's plea challenging the interim stay granted by the Delhi High Court on June 21.
The bench also allowed Kejriwal to withdraw his plea after senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, appearing for him, said he would file a substantial appeal as the high court has pronounced the final order on June 25, staying the bail order.
The top court granted liberty to Kejriwal to file the substantial appeal.
In its affidavit, the ED pointed out that section 45 of the PMLA envisages two mandatory conditions — public prosecutor be given the opportunity to oppose bail and where the public prosecutor opposes the bail application, the court has to satisfy itself that there exist reasonable grounds for believing that accused is not guilty of such offence and that he is not likely to commit any offence while on bail.
«In the instance case, it is the specific ground raised by the prosecuting agency with
