Kejriwal's plea against HC order to be heard on June 26

On Tuesday, the Delhi High Court halted the trial court's decision to release Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on bail in the money laundering case related to the excise policy scam.

The High Court stopped the trial court's bail order for the Delhi CM last week, while waiting to give its decision on the plea. In response, the AAP leader's legal team went to the Supreme Court.

At the same time, the Supreme Court scheduled June 26 as the date to hear Kejriwal's appeal regarding the High Court's decision to temporarily halt his bail in the money laundering case connected to the suspected excise scam.

The leader of AAP would have been released from Tihar prison on Friday if the high court had not granted the interim relief to the Enforcement Directorate.

The high court disagreed with the trial court's opinion that the vacation judge couldn't examine the extensive records from the ED, describing it as 'unjustified' and 'uncalled for'. The court highlighted that this demonstrated the trial court had not 'applied its mind' when granting bail.

The high court pointed out that the trial court should have allowed the ED to present their case properly and should have confirmed its satisfaction under Section 45 of the PMLA that "there are reasonable grounds for believing that Kejriwal is not guilty of such offence".

Furthermore, it was noted by the court that the trial court neglected to take into account the AAP chief's potential vicarious liability for crimes committed by party members.