'Judge Who Stayed Kejriwal's Bail Kin of ED Counsel': 150 Lawyers Express Objections to CJI
New Delhi: A delegation of 150 lawyers from the Delhi high court and district courts have written to the Chief Justice of India, D.Y. Chandrachud, on the manner in which a judge quashed the Delhi chief minister's bail without having read the order.
The lawyers, according to a report on The Hindu, pointed out that the brother of Justice Sudhir Kumar Jain, who stayed the bail order serves as a counsel for the Enforcement Directorate. It is the ED's case on Delhi's excise duty policy in which Kejriwal had been arrested and was seeking bail.
The ED, a financial crimes agency which is in the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union government's control, arrested him in March. Late last month, just after Kejriwal was given bail by the Rouse Avenue Court, the Central Bureau of Investigation – another such agency – arrested him.
On June 20, the trial court which granted bail to Kejriwal had said the ED was acting with bias against the chief minister. Vacation judge Niyay Bindu had said the ED did not provide enough evidence for the chief minister's incarceration.
The letter highlighted a 'clear' conflict of interest: “Hon’ble Justice Sudhir Kumar Jain should have recused himself from the proceedings since his real brother is a counsel for the Enforcement Directorate. This clear conflict of interest was never declared by Hon’ble Justice Sudhir Kumar Jain."
The report said that Justice Jain's permission to the ED to challenge Kejriwal's bail and his stay on the bail order came even before it was officially uploading in an unprecedented move.
“Something like this has never been seen in the history of the Indian judiciary before this,” the lawyers said, according to The Hindu.
The report said that the representation, which includes Aam Aadmi Party's lead advocate Sanjeev Nasiar, also highlighted an internal administrative order issued by the District Judge of Rouse Avenue Court directing Vacation Courts, which function during the summer break, to refrain from issuing final orders and only to issue notices for regular courts after the vacation.
The move undermined the purpose of Vacation Courts, the lawyers said, adding that they would like to lodge a strong objection against such an order.
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