In a major relief for Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, the Supreme Court on Friday granted him bail in a corruption case registered by CBI in the alleged excise policy scam. Supreme Court observed that prolonged incarceration amounts to unjust deprivation of liberty.

The bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan pronounced the order.

They stated that Kejriwal’s arrest by the CBI is legal. According to Bar and Bench, the AAP chief will be released subject to a bail bond of Rs. 10 lakh.

Placing conditions on Kejriwal’s release, the court said he cannot make public comments about the case. Kejriwal has been asked to appear for trial unless exempted.

In the last hearing, the CBI opposed Kejriwal’s bail plea, stating he directly approached the High Court without first going to the Sessions Court.

ASG SV Raju, counsel for the CBI, had argued before the court that Kejriwal used his influence to harass an excise license holder from Punjab through his party-led government.

The Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who is lodged in Tihar Jail, is expected to walk out of the jail this evening after nearly five months of incarceration.

Kejriwal was arrested by the CBI on June 26 while he was in judicial custody in connection with a money laundering case being investigated by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) related to the same scam.

Following this, the Delhi CM approached the High Court challenging his arrest. On August 5, the Delhi High Court refused Kejriwal’s petition and asked him to approach the trial court for bail.

After the setback from the High Court, Kejriwal filed two pleas before the apex court, challenging the legality of his arrest by the CBI and seeking bail.

After hearing all sides in the case, the bench reserved its verdict on September 5.

The court granted the bail plea and rejected the second plea challenging the legality of his arrest.

Justice Ujjal Bhuyan’s scathing observation against CBI

Justice Ujjal Bhuyan, in his separate judgment, lashed out at the CBI and stated that Kejriwal’s arrest by the agency after securing bail in the ED case was only intended to frustrate his release from prison. “The CBI did not feel the need to arrest him, even though he was interrogated in March 2023, and it was only after his ED arrest was stayed that the CBI became active and sought custody of Kejriwal. Thus, there was no need for his arrest for over 22 months. Such actions by the CBI raise serious questions about the timing of the arrest, and this arrest by the CBI was solely to frustrate the bail granted in the ED case,” Bar and Bench quoted Justice Bhuyan as saying.

He further criticised the Central probe agency, stating, “The CBI must be seen as above board, and every effort must be made to ensure that arrests are not carried out in a high-handed manner. In this country, perception matters, and the CBI must dispel the notion of being a ‘caged parrot’ and show that it is an uncaged parrot. The CBI should be like Caesar’s wife, above suspicion,” he said in his order.

Investigative agencies have accused Kejriwal of misconduct in drafting the now-scrapped 2021-22 Delhi excise policy.

Kejriwal was initially arrested by the ED on March 21 in connection with the case.

Although the Supreme Court later granted him interim bail in the ED case, he remained in jail because the CBI formally arrested him on June 26 while he was already in judicial custody related to the ED investigation.

Chandigarh: The Congress party on Thursday released its third list of candidates for the Haryana Assembly elections.

Among the candidates announced in the third list are Chander Mohan from Panchkula, Nirmal Singh from Ambala, Pooja Chaudhary from Maulana, Akram Khan from Jagadhri, Rahul Makkar from Hansi, Manisha Sangwan from Dadri, Jagdish Yadav from Kosli and Lakhan Kumar Singhla from Faridabad.

Party Releases Its 2nd List Of Candidates

Earlier on September 9, the party released its second list of candidates.

The party fielded Ashok Arora from Thanesar, Kuldeep Sharma from Ganaur, Brijendra Singh from Uchana Kalan, and Paramvir Singh from Tohana.

Anirudh Chaudhary will contest from Tosham, Balram Dangi from Meham, Manju Choudhary from Nangal Chaudhary, Vardhan Yadav from Badshahpur, and Mohit Grover from Gurugram.

Notably, the Congress party has fielded newly inducted former athlete Vinesh Phogat from Julana.

Former Wrestler Vinesh Phogat Files Nomination For Haryana Assembly Elections 2024

Earlier on Wednesday, former wrestler and Congress candidate from Julana Assembly constituency, Vinesh Phogat, filed nomination for the upcoming Assembly elections in Haryana.

Phogat filed her nomination in the presence of Congress MP Deepender Hooda and other state leaders of the party.

She expressed her gratitude to the people of the constituency for their love and emphasised the party’s commitment to work for the welfare of every section.

“It is a matter of good fortune for me that I am entering politics. We are working hard for the welfare of every section. I am grateful for the love the people of Jualana are giving me,” Phogat said while speaking to reporters after filing her nomination.

Vinesh Phogat Joins Congress

Phogat joined the Congress party on September 6 along with olympian wrestler Bajrang Punia, providing a big boost to the party in the run-up to the upcoming Haryana Assembly elections.

Phogat is pitted against BJP candidate Captain Yogesh Bairagi in Julana for the upcoming Haryana Assembly elections. Bairagi also filed his nomination earlier in the day.

About Haryana Assembly Elections 2024

Voting for the 90-member legislative assembly in Haryana will be held on October 5, and the last date for filing nominations is September 12. The counting of votes will be held on October 8.

In the 2019 assembly polls, the BJP became the single-largest party with 40 seats and Congress won 30 seats.

Washington DC [US], September 11/ Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi came out heavily against the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Centre over the border standoff with China and said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not handled the situation well.

The Congress leader was speaking at an interaction with media at the National Press Club in Washington DC on Tuesday (local time).

“We’ve got Chinese troops occupying land the size of Delhi in Ladakh, and I think that’s a disaster. The media doesn’t like to write about it. How would America react if a neighbour occupied 4,000 square kilometers of its territory? Would any president be able to get away with saying he’s handled that well? So, I don’t think Mr Modi has handled China well at all. I see no reason why Chinese troops should be sitting in our territory,” Rahul Gandhi said.

Notably, in 2020, the Indian and Chinese troops clashed at Galwan, the same year the pandemic started.

Since May 2020, when the Chinese troops tried to aggressively change the status quo on LAC in eastern Ladakh, both sides have been deployed in forward positions near Patrolling Point 15, which emerged as a friction point in the wake of the Galwan clash.

Over 50,000 Indian soldiers have been stationed since 2020 at forward posts along the LAC, with advanced weapons to prevent any attempts to change the status quo unilaterally on the LAC.

Terming the Chinese vision of production as “non-democratic”, the Raebareli MP stressed on the idea of US and India placing a production vision in a democratic and free society.

“We don’t want to do it like the Chinese are doing it. We don’t want to do it in an environment which is non-democratic, which is not liberal. So the real question for the 21st century, the Chinese have placed a production vision on the table. It’s a non-democratic production vision. Can the United States and India answer that by placing a vision for production in a democratic free society? And I think that’s where a lot of answers lie,” he said.

Rahul, also opened on his new role and responsibilities as the Leader of Opposition, and said there is an ideological war taking place between the INDIA bloc and the BJP-RSS. He further vowed that the Opposition wants to ‘defend’ India’s institutions and provide a broader vision for the country.

“It’s an extension of what I did earlier. There’s an ideological war taking place in India between the Congress and our partners and the BJP and the RSS. They are two completely different visions of India. We believe in a plural vision, a vision where everybody has a right to thrive… an India where you’re not persecuted because of what religion you believe in or what community you come from or which language you speak, versus a much harsher, centralizing vision. So that’s the landscape. And then we fight on that landscape,” the Congress leader further said.

“[We want to] defend India’s institutions, defend the weaker sections in India, defend the lower caste, tribals, minorities, poor people. After the yatra, I try to become the voice of as many people as I can. So for that…you have to go deeper, deep into the agricultural world, the conflicts that are taking place there, into the financial system, into the tax system. So you have to, in a sense, go deep into it, talk to people and then get, understand deeply what they’re saying and then transmit it and at a broader level, provide a vision, INDIA alliance vision for the country, which is obviously going to be fundamentally different than the centralizing, monopolized vision that the BJP is presenting,” he added.

The Congress leader further said that at one time the West used to be the producer of the world, but slowly China took over the responsibility.

He said that not manufacturing enough means, not enough employment can be generated. Rahul further added that there is a huge opportunity for both India and the US to regain the ability to produce.

I am more interested in the act of production: Rahul

“Here in the United States that the West, America, Europe, and India, the West used to be the producer of the world. If you wanted to buy a car, in the 60s, you bought an American car, washing machine, refrigerator…You guys were at the forefront of that. And then somewhere along the line, America decided, India decided, and the West decided that we’re just going to stop. And we handed the whole thing to the Chinese. Now for a country like India, to simply say that we’re going to ignore manufacturing, and only run a services-based economy, it means you cannot give employment to people,” Rahul Gandhi “I am more interested in the act of production- also called manufacturing. Look at what most American, Indian and European countries do. They organize consumption. Uber organizes consumption. Organizing consumption is easy. Organizing production is a completely different ballgame, much more complicated. You have to deal with things when you organize production that you simply don’t have to deal with when you organize production. So to me, there’s a huge opportunity for India and the United States to regain that ability to produce,” he further added.

Speaking on the unemployment situation, the LoP in Lok Sabha said he wants to support small and medium-small businesses and promote a decentralised production system.

“We have a government in Karnataka and Telangana. Each area in India has its own specialty of production. If you go to pretty much any district, Ballari in Karnataka has a very deep textile industry which has been destroyed. So we are looking at these pockets of excellence and then trying to bring modern technology, financial support to build them. So the vision would be more of a decentralized production system. Unlike China, which is huge factories, we would be thinking about smaller and small medium businesses and embedding modern technology into that. We’re testing some of these ideas in Karnataka and Telangana,” he said.

Rahul Gandhi is on a three-day visit to the United States. During this, he has interacted with Indian diaspora besides students and faculty at universities and also met US lawmakers.

This is Rahul Gandhi first visit to the US after he became Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha.