The Rouse Avenue Court on Tuesday has scheduled the hearing for the plea filed by the AAP National Convenor Arvind Kejriwal. The hearing is on November 20. Arvind Kejriwal claims that, he didn’t received sanction order’s copy in Enforcement Directorate case on him.
Kaveri Baweja who is special judge, has granted the additional time to ED to give the reply and fixed the matter. The court issued notice on November 23, to ED in response to Arvind Kejriwal’s request.
Kejriwal stated in his plea that, in a recent hearing Solicitor General who represented ED mentioned that the sanction which was required has been obtained when chargesheet was filed.
Advocate Mudit Jain, appearing on behalf of Arvind Kejriwal, stated that the documents, both relied upon and unreleased, provided along with the chargesheet did not include any copy of the required sanction.
Delhi High Court issued a notice on November 21, to AAP Chief Arvind Kejriwal’s plea challenging the trail court’s decision to take cognizance of the Enforcement Directorate’s chargesheet against him in the alleged excise policy scam.
The bench of Justice Manoj Kumar Ohri, however, did not grant any stay on the trial proceedings at this stage. The Court scheduled the matter for a hearing on December 20, to consider arguments on both the stay application and the plea seeking the quashing of the trial court’s order.
Tushar Mehta, Solicitor General, who is appearing for ED, opposed the Arvind Kejriwal’s plea,stating that proper sanction was obtained when prosecution chargesheet was filed.
AAP Chief Arvind Kejriwal approached the High Court of Delhi, challenging the decision of trail court. Currently AAP National Convenor is on bail in ED and CBI cases.
The plea argued that the trial court judge, in the impugned order, erred in taking cognizance of the offence under Section 3 of the PMLA, punishable under Section 4 of the PMLA, without obtaining prior sanction under Section 197(1) of the CrPC for the prosecution of the petitioner. This was particularly relevant as the petitioner, Arvind Kejriwal, was a public servant (the Chief Minister) at the time of the alleged offence.
As per the ED, the excise policy was deliberately made with loopholes just to benefit the leaders of Aam Aadmi Party. The Enforcement Directorate has accused leaders of AAP of getting kickbacks from the liquor businesses in exchange of some treatment. They also made allegations, that this involved the wholesale liquor distribution to private organizations. This had a fixed margin of 12 %. Also the leaders of Aam Aadmi Party were accused of influencing the outcome in Goa and Punjab election in the year 2022.
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