New Delhi: The Rouse Avenue court has sent Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal to judicial custody till April 15. In light of this, Kejriwal has made a special request for three books: the Bhagavad Gita, Ramayana, and How Prime Minister Decides by Neerja Choudhary.
He also requested medicines and a table and chair for his time in jail. On his requests, Aam Aadmi Party spokesperson Priyanka Kakkar said that the Delhi chief minister is an “educated” individual and utilises his time ‘productively”. “That’s why he has asked for the books,” she said, according to India Today.
The Enforcement Directorate arrested the Aam Aadmi Party convener on March 21 in connection with the liquor excise policy case under which it has arrested key leaders in the AAP and ministers of Kejriwal’s government.
On March 22, the ED produced Kejriwal before Special Judge (PC Act) Kaveri Baweja who remanded Kejriwal to ED custody till March 28. Then, the same court extended the custody by four days, which came to an end today.
Bar and Bench has reported that Additional Solicitor General (ASG) S.V. Raju, who appeared for the ED, alleged that Kejriwal’s conduct has been “totally non cooperative and he has tried to mislead the interrogation.”
Among allegations made by Raju was that Kejriwal said that co-accused and former AAP communication in-charge Vijay Nair does not report to him but to senior Delhi cabinet minister, Atishi. He has also, allegedly, not shared his phone’s password with the ED.
Kejriwal’s arrest is the second time this year and in the history of India that a sitting chief minister has been put in jail while serving the chair. Some accounts have it that it is the first, seeing that Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren quit before he was taken into custody – also by the ED – in a case of alleged money laundering linked to a land scam. However, Soren would not have quit had his arrest not been imminent.
Kejriwal had initially placed a plea before the Supreme Court challenging his arrest. On the same day when his plea was to be heard, a special bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna, M.M. Sundresh, and Bela Trivedi – who were also to hear his plea – directed co-accused K. Kavitha to approach the trial court for bail. Kavitha is a Member of the Legislative Council of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) and daughter of former Telangana chief minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao. Kejriwal then withdrew his plea from the apex court.
In addition to the opposition coalition, INDIA, and activists within the country, the US state department and Germany have spoken on the necessity for transparency in Kejriwal’s trial.
