The Supreme Court of India has rejected Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s application seeking a seven-day extension of his interim bail in a money laundering case linked to the Delhi excise policy case. Last month, the apex court had granted Kejriwal interim bail to enable him to campaign for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and directed him to surrender on June 2.
On Tuesday, the court questioned Kejriwal’s lawyer, Senior Advocate Abhishek Singhvi, as to why the medical condition was not brought to the court’s attention when Justice Dipankar Datta, the judge of the main bench, was hearing the case last week.
Kejriwal had sought an extension of his interim bail by seven days to undergo a range of medical tests, including a PET-CT scan, in view of his “sudden and unexplained weight loss coupled with high ketone levels,” which, he claimed, are indicative of kidney issues, serious cardiac ailments, and even cancer.
In his plea submitted on May 26, Kejriwal stated that he would surrender to jail authorities on June 9 instead of the originally scheduled date of June 2 for his return to prison.
The apex court had on May 10 granted the chief minister 21-day interim bail to enable him to campaign for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The court had directed that Kejriwal surrender on June 2, a day after the last phase of the seven-phase poll ends.
The Delhi CM is facing corruption and money laundering charges in the excise policy scam. The charges pertain to the formulation and execution of the Delhi government’s now-scrapped excise policy for 2021-22.
