Arvind Kejriwal withdraws plea against ED arrest from Supreme Court

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on Thursday night in connection with the Delhi excise policy case. The plea was withdrawn as his remand proceedings were coming up before a trial court.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday withdrew from the Supreme Court his plea challenging his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the excise policy case.

Senior advocate A M Singhvi communicated this to a bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta. Singhvi said he was withdrawing the plea as the remand proceedings were also coming up before the trial court on Friday and he would argue when the remand proceedings were taken up.

“As the remand is clashing, decided to withdraw it and fight that remand… Otherwise there will be arguments of remand and then high court and then…,” Singhvi submitted.

The bench agreed to his request.

Earlier in the day, Singhvi brought the matter to the urgent notice of the Chief Justice of India (CJI) D Y Chandrachud in court number 1. The CJI told him to approach court number 2 presided by Justice Khanna where a special bench of Justices Khanna, M M Sundresh and Bela M Trivedi was hearing Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader K Kavitha’s petition challenging her arrest in the Delhi excise policy case.

By the time Singhvi rushed to court 2, the special bench had risen and the bench of Justices Khanna and Dipankar Datta commenced proceedings.

Responding to Singhvi’s request, Justice Khanna asked him if it was a writ petition or an appeal. Informed that it was a writ petition, Justice Khanna told Singhvi that it would have to be heard by a three-judge bench. He assured the senior counsel that the three-judge special bench would reassemble immediately after the cases listed before the current bench gets over.

A while later, Singhvi informed the court about the decision to withdraw the petition.