CBI and BJP 'conspiring' to keep Kejriwal in jail, claims AAP | Latest News Delhi

AAP officials said that despite all the conspiracies, the truth will ultimately prevail and Kejriwal will soon be released from prison.

“Yesterday, during Arvind Kejriwal's bail hearing in the Supreme Court, the CBI stood before the Supreme Court and said that they took a week to file an affidavit in the case, so the hearing should not take place. Following this, the Supreme Court gave time to the Central government CBI and fixed the hearing date for two weeks later (September 5). But the affidavit, for which the CBI had asked the court for a week's time to file, has been printed in all the newspapers today… The question arises, how could the affidavit, for which the CBI took a week's time yesterday, be printed in all the newspapers today?” Atishi said, claiming that the CBI had leaked the “affidavit” in the newspapers.

“It just means that the affidavit was ready. The CBI lied to the Supreme Court that it was not ready. This means that the CBI is only conspiring to keep Kejriwal in jail for a few more days,” Atishi said.

The allegations came a day after the CBI justified the arrest of Arvind Kejriwal in the Delhi tax policy case, accusing the AAP chief of playing a “key role” in the formulation and implementation of the controversial policy. According to the agency, the Delhi Chief Minister's arrest was “essential for the just conclusion of the investigation”, especially in view of his lack of cooperation and the ample evidence pointing to his involvement. This came even as the Supreme Court on Friday postponed the hearing of Kejriwal's bail plea to September 5.

Kejriwal was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on March 21 in connection with alleged irregularities in the now-defunct Excise Policy 2021-22 case. Kejriwal has been in custody since his arrest by the ED on March 21, apart from a 21-day interim bail granted to him by the Supreme Court in May for the Lok Sabha election campaign.

On July 12, the Supreme Court granted interim bail to Kejriwal in the ED case, acknowledging that he had spent over 90 days in custody. However, he remained in custody as he was arrested by the CBI on June 26 in the same case.

HT has reached out to the CBI but has not received a response to its request for comment.

Former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia alleged that the CBI was “dancing to the tune” of the BJP.

“Just see how the CBI is dancing like a puppet on the BJP's agenda to keep Arvind Kejriwal in jail. The day the CBI goes to court and says that our reply to the bail plea is not ready and hence the bail hearing should be postponed for 14 days, the CBI's reply will be leaked to the media… No matter how many conspiracies you cook up to grab headlines, truth and honesty will prevail. The agencies may dance to the tune of politics but the Constitution and judiciary always stand behind the truth,” Manish Sisodia said in a post in Hindi on X.

Kejriwal has filed two petitions. In one case, the CBI informed the court that the affidavit was filed on August 22. It was also served on Kejriwal's lawyers. In the second petition, the CBI sought time to file a reply. The petition printed in the newspapers on August 24 was submitted to the court.

Atishi said the “conspiracy” against the AAP leadership had been going on for two years and numerous raids had been carried out against them, but “no evidence has been found against any of them.”

While Kejriwal is still in jail, party chief Manish Sisodia and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh, who were also arrested in connection with the alleged irregularities in tax policy, are out on bail. AAP chief Satyendar Jain, who was arrested in a money laundering case (unrelated to tax policy), is still behind bars.

“Raids were conducted on the houses of AAP leaders, they were repeatedly summoned for questioning and witnesses were threatened to testify against AAP leaders. Despite all the raids, not even a single rupee of corruption was found, but AAP leaders were arrested one after another and sent to jail. Satyendar Jain, Manish Sisodia and Sanjay Singh were arrested. And despite all this, when AAP did not relent, Arvind Kejriwal was arrested on false charges just before the Lok Sabha elections,” Atishi said.

“On June 20, Arvind Kejriwal was granted bail by the court in ED's PMLA case. Even before this order was uploaded, ED approached the Supreme Court on the morning of June 21 and got the court's order quashed without issuing the order (ED). On June 22, Arvind Kejriwal's lawyer approached the Supreme Court against the Supreme Court order. BJP knows that every person gets justice from the Supreme Court and he was granted bail in the ED case. Therefore, BJP got Arvind Kejriwal arrested by the CBI on June 26 so that he cannot be released from jail,” Atishi said.

“On July 11, when Arvind Kejriwal was granted bail by the Supreme Court in the ED case, he could not be released from jail even after more than a month due to the BJP conspiracy,” Atishi said.

The AAP leader said that in the Manish Sisodia case, when the hearing was scheduled to take place on July 15, “the ED and CBI of the BJP” even then told the Supreme Court that they needed time, which is why the hearing was postponed from July 15 to July 29.

In fact, Manish Sisodia was granted bail by the Supreme Court in the excise policy case on August 9.

“I want to tell the BJP that no matter how hard they try, truth will prevail in the end. We have seen that Manish Sisodia was exonerated by the Supreme Court despite all the efforts of CBI and ED and we are confident that CM Arvind Kejriwal will also come before the people of Delhi soon,” Atishi said.

Delhi BJP spokespersons Praveen Shankar Kapoor and Amit Tiwari said the AAP leadership should take the CBI to court if it feels the agency has done anything wrong.

“The AAP is an anarchic party whose leaders expect the investigating agencies to work at their whims. For the AAP leaders, any investigating agency rejecting their bail application or plea or any court denying them the compensation they seek is biased at the behest of the BJP. If Atishi and Manish Sisodia really believe that the CBI has done something wrong or lied, then instead of creating media melodrama, they should challenge the CBI in the Supreme Court,” the BJP spokespersons said.