Delhi Excise Policy case: Supreme Court deny to grant bail CM Arvind Kejriwal, next hearing on August 23

New Delhi: Today Supreme Court heard the plea filed by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal seeking release from jail in connection with the Delhi excise policy case, but after listening to both parties the top court refused to grant bail to Delhi CM. Supreme Court said- issuing notice to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), will.

New Delhi: Today Supreme Court heard the plea filed by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal seeking release from jail in connection with the Delhi excise policy case, but after listening to both parties the top court refused to grant bail to Delhi CM.

Supreme Court said- issuing notice to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), will hear the case on August 23.

A bench of justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan has heard Kejriwal’s two petitions, which have separately challenged the August 5 decision of the Delhi High Court affirming his arrest and denying him bail.

In his plea, filed two days after the top court granted bail to former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia in a related probe by CBI and the Enforcement Directorate (ED), the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Chief has challenged his arrest and subsequent remand orders, while also pressing for bail.

Kejriwal, in the petitions filed on Monday, assailed the Delhi High Court’s August 5 judgment, which ruled that his arrest was neither illegal nor without justifiable grounds because CBI presented “evidently enough evidence” to warrant his detention and remand.

His plea relied heavily on the Sisodia verdict, in which the top court held that the former Deputy CM’s long incarceration of 17 months and his continued detention in a case where there was no hope of trial ending anytime soon impinged on his fundamental right to liberty and speedy trial under Article 21 of the Constitution.

The case against the CM stems from allegations of irregularities in Delhi’s now-scrapped excise policy of 2021-22, which CBI began probing following a recommendation by Delhi’s Lieutenant Governor in July 2022. Kejriwal was the third AAP leader arrested in this connection. Sisodia was incarcerated since February 2023 before he was released on August 9, and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh was granted bail by the top court in April, after six months of custody.