In no relief for Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, the high court stayed his bail order in the excise policy case.

This means the AAP chief continues to stay in jail.

Senior Advocate Abhishek Singhvi, appearing for Kejriwal, sought vacating of the interim stay on the bail order. On the other hand, ASG SV Raju, appearing for the ED, opposed Kejriwal’s plea and said the high court was about to pronounce the verdict on its stay application.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener, who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on March 21, could have walked out of Tihar jail on Friday last had the high court not granted the interim stay relief to the federal anti-money laundering agency.

The Rouse Avenue Court granted the relief to the AAP leader on a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh but imposed certain conditions including he will not try to hamper the probe or influence the witnesses. Furthermore, the judge also directed Kejriwal to appear before the court whenever required and to cooperate with the investigation.

It also declined the ED’s request to stay the bail order for 48 hours.

ED moves High Court

After this, the Enforcement Directorate moved the High Court and sought a stay on the trial court’s order, which granted Kejriwal regular bail. The High Court, however, reserved its order on the central agency’s plea and imposed an interim stay on Arvind Kejriwal’s release from jail.

Kejriwal then moved the Supreme Court but did not get any immediate relief. The top court refused to give any immediate order to overturn the Delhi High Court’s order. The Supreme Court asked both Arvind Kejriwal and the ED to wait for the High Court’s judgement.

The top court will give its order on Kejriwal’s plea on June 26.

Shortly after the Delhi HC refused to grant him protection from arrest on petitions challenging the summonses issued to him by the ED, the central agency arrested Arvind Kejriwal on March 21 in connection with the excise policy case.

On May 21, the Supreme Court granted interim bail to the Delhi CM for a period of 21 days till June to campaign for the Lok Sabha polls. The top court also asked Kejriwal to surrender himself before Tihar jail authorities on June 2 and has been there since then. Later, the trial court denied Kejriwal interim bail on June 5 which he sought citing several medical conditions. ( With Agencies Inputs )