Financial probe agency Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday opposed Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s bail plea amid the ongoing Lok Sabha Elections before the Supreme Court saying poll campaigning was “not a fundamental, constitutional or a legal right”.
“The right to campaign for an election is not a fundamental right, constitutional right or even a legal right,” the probe agency told the Supreme Court.
“No political leader has ever been granted interim bail to campaign for elections even though he’s not contesting polls,” the ED told the top court while filing a fresh affidavit.
The Aam Aadmi Party national convenor was arrested by the anti-corruption agency on March 21, in connection with a money laundering case linked to the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy. A Delhi court on Tuesday extended the judicial custody of Kejriwal till May 20.
The Enforcement Directorate told the court that around 123 elections were held in the past three years. “If interim bail is to be granted for election campaigning, then no politician can be arrested and kept in judicial custody as elections are held throughout the year,” the ED said.
SPECIAL CONCESSION TO KEJRIWAL WOULD BE ANATHEMA TO RULE OF LAW: ED
Any special concession in Kejriwal’s case to grant him interim bail for campaigning in the general election would amount to anathema to the rule of law and equality, the ED told the court.
“It would create a precedent which would permit all unscrupulous politicians to commit crimes, avoid investigation under the garb of election,” the ED further said.
“It will create two separate classes in the country viz. ordinary people who are bound by the rule of law and politicians who can seek exemption from the laws with hope of securing interim bail to campaign for elections,” the probe agency said.
AAP Reacts
The Delhi Chief Minister was arrested based on statements of ED’s four approvers, Magunta Reddy, Sarath Reddy, Satya Vijay Naik, and a close aide of an ex-BJP CM, all of whom are directly related to BJP, said AAP.
The AAP said the statements indicated a pattern. “These persons were arrested, they made multiple statements which did not implicate Kejriwal. The ED repeatedly objected to their bail, they made statements implicating Shri Arvind Kejriwal, they were granted bail without the ED objecting to it. All the statements where there is no allegation against Kejriwal were deliberately ignored by the ED,” the AAP said.
“Some of these statements do not even indicate the commission of money laundering or any predicate offence. All of the evidence against Arvind Kejriwal as shown in the grounds of arrest have come after the arrest of all these people, leading to a suspicion that the arrest has been systematically used as a device to coerce statements against Kejriwal,” the AAP shared.
The ED illegally ‘picked up’ a sitting CM and the national convenor of a party just five days after the model code of conduct came into force, providing BJP unjust upper hand in ongoing elections, the party said.
“ED arrested CM Arvind Kejriwal just ahead of Lok Sabha elections, clearly compromising ‘level playing field’, a prerequisite for free and fair elections,” the party said.
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