Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal emerged from Tihar Jail on Friday after the Supreme Court released him on bail on the Excise Policy charges. The court allowed ₹10 lakhs as bail and said that Kejriwal should not give media bytes on this case.
The bench decided to allow the plea by a bench led by Surya Kant while Ujjal Bhuyan was also on the bench. The attempt by the Delhi police was by Justice Bhuyan, who raised an eyebrow over the arrest of Kejriwal by the CBI when he was on the periphery of being released on bail. He said that this action by the CBI may be designed as an effort to make bail harder to access.
Justice Bhuyan cited one of the common legal maxims, which states that an individual is innocent until proven guilty, and thus argued that rather than detention, the granting of bail should be normal while incarceration is an anomaly. He pointed at the CBI’s objections concerning Kejriwal’s bail, blaming the latter’s attitude during the questioning.
The AAP chief was arrested on June 26 in a scam probe linked to the Delhi government’s 2021-22 excise policy. The Delhi High Court had granted an arrest warrant earlier, but as per the order of today’s Apex Court, he can be released as the case goes on.
