Arvind Kejriwal’s challenge to High Court order expected to be filed on Monday

New Delhi:

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will spend this weekend in Tihar jail as the Supreme Court today did not hear his challenge to yesterday’s Delhi High Court ruling. The Supreme Court will sit next Monday, where a petition by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader is expected to be heard.

It is understood that the Supreme Court will not set up a special court for emergency hearing of Kejriwal’s appeal. According to the Supreme Court’s calendar, the court is on recess Thursday for Eid al-Fitr, followed by a local holiday on Friday and then the weekend. Court will reconvene on Monday.

Mr Kejriwal’s lawyer, senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, raised the matter before Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud this morning and sought an urgent hearing. The chief justice declined to specify whether a hearing would be held today. “We’ll look at it and we’ll look into it,” he said.

The High Court yesterday dismissed Mr Kejriwal’s challenge to his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on March 21 in a money laundering case related to Delhi’s now-defunct liquor policy. The court held that the central agency had “no choice” after AAP leaders repeatedly skipped summons in the money laundering case. It also noted that the Education Ministry had alleged that Mr Kejriwal was actively involved in using and concealing alleged proceeds of crime.

The court stressed that there was no separate protocol to be followed by the investigating agency while questioning common people and the chief minister.

“Furthermore, this Court is of the view that this Court will not frame two different categories of law, one applicable to ordinary citizens and the other conferring privileges upon the investigating agency only on the basis of granting privileges to the Chief Minister or any other person in authority: Justice Swa Swarana Kanta Sharma said in a statement that “the public figure enjoys this public office due to the public mandate”.

AAP leader and Delhi minister Saurabh Bharadwaj said they hoped the Supreme Court would give a favorable verdict. He said the education ministry and the CBI did not find even a single rupee during searches related to the Delhi liquor policy case. “They are talking about crores of rupees. But the ED and the CBI have not found even a single rupee of illegal funds. The witnesses are forced to change their statements and say what the ED wants them to do,” he said. “This issue has nothing to do with money laundering. This is the biggest political conspiracy in the history of India.”