Delhi High Court gives last chance to Arvind Kejriwal to respond to ED plea to expunge remarks in excise policy case

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Thursday gave a final opportunity to former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, his deputy Manish Sisodia and others to respond to a plea by the Enforcement Directorate to expunge "unwarranted" remarks made against it by the trial court while discharging them in the liquor policy case.

Observing that none of the respondents, except one, filed their responses even after seeking time on the last date of hearing, Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma said the court will hear arguments in the case on April 22.

"Last opportunity is granted to file reply, failing which the right to file reply will close. Arguments will be heard on the next date of hearing. List on April 22," the judge said.

Additional Solicitor General S V Raju, appearing for the agency, said except Vinod Chauhan, others have chosen not to file their reply to the petition.

On March 19, the court granted time till April 2 to Kejriwal and other respondents to reply to the ED's plea to expunge the remarks against it.

The ED's counsel had then said there was no need to file replies as the challenge in the plea was limited to the trial court judge's observations against the agency, which has no impact on the respondents' discharge.

In the petition, the ED said the trial court's remarks were wholly extraneous to the CBI's case. It said the ED was neither a party in those proceedings nor afforded any opportunity to be heard.

"If such sweeping, unguided, bald observations are permitted to stand ... grave and irreparable prejudice would be caused to the public at large as well as the petitioner," the ED plea said.

"Therefore, the aforesaid paragraphs which concern the investigation independently conducted by the Enforcement Directorate under the PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) deserve to be expunged as it amounts to a clear case of judicial overreach...," it added.

On March 10, the court had asked Kejriwal and others to respond to the ED's plea.

On February 27, the trial court discharged Kejriwal, Sisodia and others in the Delhi liquor policy case, saying the CBI's case was wholly unable to survive judicial scrutiny and stood discredited in its entirety.

The trial court ruled that the alleged conspiracy was nothing more than a speculative construct resting on conjecture and surmise, devoid of any admissible evidence.

To compel the accused to face the rigours of a full-fledged criminal trial in the stark absence of any legally admissible material did not serve the ends of justice, it said.

In its order, the trial court highlighted that a procedure permitting prolonged or indefinite incarceration based on a provisional and untested allegation risked "degenerating into a punitive process" and raised a "concern of considerable constitutional significance" where individual liberty was "imperilled" by invoking the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

It said the issue assumed heightened significance where an accused was arrested for the offence of money laundering and thereafter required to surmount the stringent twin conditions prescribed for the grant of bail, resulting in prolonged incarceration even at the pre-trial stage.

It further said that despite the settled legal position that the offence of money laundering cannot independently subsist and requires the foundational edifice of a legally sustainable predicate offence, the prevailing practice revealed a disturbing inversion.

Underlining that the objective of PMLA was undoubtedly legitimate and compelling, the trial judge mentioned that statutory power, however wide, could not eclipse constitutional safeguards.