ED failed to give direct evidence linking Kejriwal to proceeds of crime, says court
New Delhi (PTI): The Enforcement Directorate (ED) failed to furnish direct evidence linking Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to the proceeds of crime in the money laundering case against him, a Delhi court has said while ordering his release on bail.
The order passed on Thursday has, however, been stayed by the Delhi High Court on an appeal by the ED. The trial court order was made available to the media on Friday.
In the order granting relief to Kejriwal, Special Judge Niyay Bindu held that prima facie his guilt was yet to be established.
"It may be possible that some persons known to the applicant are having involvement in an offence....but ED has failed to give any direct evidence against the applicant in respect of the proceeds of crime," the judge said.
She also questioned the ED's silence on Kejriwal's assertion that he was arrested in the money laundering case related to the alleged excise scam without having been named in the CBI FIR or the ECIR registered by the anti-money laundering agency. Enforcement Case Informaton Report (ECIR) is ED's version of an FIR.
"This is also noticeable that ED is silent about the facts as to how the proceeds of crime have been utilized in Assembly Elections in Goa by AAP as, admittedly, after about two years, the bigger portion of the alleged amount remains to be traced out," the judge said.
Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has been accused of receiving kickbacks of Rs 100 crore from the South Group, a cartel of politicians, businessmen and others to rig the Delhi liquor policy in favour of licencees. The money was allegedly used in the 2022 Goa assembly poll campaign.
The judge said the ED has failed to clarify as to how much time it required to trace the complete money trail.
"Meaning thereby that until and unless this exercise of tracing out the remaining amount gets completed by ED, accused is supposed to remain behind bars that too without proper evidence against him. This is also not an acceptable submission of ED," the judge said.
The maxim of law that every person must be presumed innocent until proven guilty seems to be not applicable in the given case in respect of the present accused, she said.
The judge quoted Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the US, to say "It is better that 100 guilty persons should escape than an innocent person should suffer".
"This principle imposes a duty upon the court not only to prevent guilty individuals from escaping justice but also to ensure that no innocent should be punished. There have been thousands of cases where the accused underwent a long lasting trial and agony resulting from the same till the date they were acquitted by the court for being innocent.
"Unfortunately, the mental and physical agony of such person cannot be compensated in any manner whatsoever," she said.
If an accused undergoes the atrocities of the system till his innocence is discovered, he would never be able to conceive that justice has actually been done to him, she said.
The judge said there are certain undisputed facts, as specified on behalf of the applicant, that in the month of July 2022 the material now with the ED was already available with it but he was called only in August 2023 which shows the malafide on the part of the central agency. "The probe agency has failed to answer this objection of the applicant," the judge said.
She also dismissed the ED's argument that "investigation is an art and sometimes one accused is given lollypop of bail and pardon and induced with some assurance to make them tell the story behind the offence".
"If it is so, then any person can be implicated and kept behind the bars by artistically procuring the material against him after artistically avoiding/ withdrawing exculpatory material from the record. This very scenario constrains the court to draw an inference against the investigating agency that it is not acting without bias," the judge said.
The judge noted that the Additional Solicitor General (ASG), appearing for the ED, talked about inducement to extract the truth against other accused involved in the matter.
"But the effect of this submission goes to the conception that the complete truth cannot be revealed through the persons who have resiled from their previous statements.
"Rather, the complete truth shall be established on the basis of the incriminating material, if available on record which the investigating agency is under an obligation to procure in a legal manner by following the procedural aspects as well," the judge said.
The judge said the allegations against Kejriwal surfaced during subsequent statements of certain co-accused. She said it is also an admitted fact that he has not been summoned by the court after his arrest and is "lying in judicial custody at the instance of ED on the pretext of the investigation being still on."
"On the prima facie basis, the guilt of the accused is yet to be established. In respect of the condition that he shall not involve in the offence after his release on bail, it is already undertaken so by the applicant in his application. Moreover, if bail is granted, the same shall be conditional which shall put the applicant under an obligation in this regard," the judge said.
She said it is also noticeable that in the cases under PMLA bail becomes an impossible task to obtain as on one pretext or the other the investigating agency gives its own reasons which puts the accused in a situation almost akin to a convict without any hope to be released from the gloomy atmosphere of jail.
The judge had on Thursday ordered Kejriwal's release on bail on a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh. It, however, imposed certain conditions on the AAP leader before granting him the relief, including that he will not try to hamper the investigation or influence the witnesses.
The judge had also directed Kejriwal to appear before the court whenever required and to cooperate with the investigation.
The ED had arrested Kejriwal on March 21, shortly after Delhi High Court refused to grant him protection from arrest on his petition challenging summonses issued to him.
On May 10, the Supreme Court had granted interim bail to Kejriwal till June 1 to campaign in Lok Sabha elections, saying he will have to surrender and go back to jail on June 2. He is in jail ever since.
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Single higher education regulator bill tabled in LS; Oppn flags ‘centralisation,' JPC likely
New Delhi: A bill to set up a 13-member body to regulate institutions of higher education was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan introduced the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, which seeks to establish an overarching higher education commission along with three councils for regulation, accreditation, and ensuring academic standards for universities and higher education institutions in India.
Meanwhile, the move drew strong opposition, with members warning that it could weaken institutional autonomy and result in excessive centralisation of higher education in India.
The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, earlier known as the Higher Education Council of India (HECI) Bill, has been introduced in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
The proposed legislation seeks to merge three existing regulatory bodies, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), into a single unified body called the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan.
At present, the UGC regulates non-technical higher education institutions, the AICTE oversees technical education, and the NCTE governs teacher education in India.
Under the proposed framework, the new commission will function through three separate councils responsible for regulation, accreditation, and the maintenance of academic standards across universities and higher education institutions in the country.
According to the Bill, the present challenges faced by higher educational institutions due to the multiplicity of regulators having non-harmonised regulatory approval protocols will be done away with.
The higher education commission, which will be headed by a chairperson appointed by the President of India, will cover all central universities and colleges under it, institutes of national importance functioning under the administrative purview of the Ministry of Education, including IITs, NITs, IISc, IISERs, IIMs, and IIITs.
At present, IITs and IIMs are not regulated by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
Government to refer bill to JPC; Oppn slams it
The government has expressed its willingness to refer it to a joint committee after several members of the Lok Sabha expressed strong opposition to the Bill, stating that they were not given time to study its provisions.
Responding to the opposition, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said the government intends to refer the Bill to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for detailed examination.
Congress Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari warned that the Bill could result in “excessive centralisation” of higher education. He argued that the proposed law violates the constitutional division of legislative powers between the Union and the states.
According to him, the Bill goes beyond setting academic standards and intrudes into areas such as administration, affiliation, and the establishment and closure of university campuses. These matters, he said, fall under Entry 25 of the Concurrent List and Entry 32 of the State List, which cover the incorporation and regulation of state universities.
Tewari further stated that the Bill suffers from “excessive delegation of legislative power” to the proposed commission. He pointed out that crucial aspects such as accreditation frameworks, degree-granting powers, penalties, institutional autonomy, and even the supersession of institutions are left to be decided through rules, regulations, and executive directions. He argued that this amounts to a violation of established constitutional principles governing delegated legislation.
Under the Bill, the regulatory council will have the power to impose heavy penalties on higher education institutions for violating provisions of the Act or related rules. Penalties range from ₹10 lakh to ₹75 lakh for repeated violations, while establishing an institution without approval from the commission or the state government could attract a fine of up to ₹2 crore.
Concerns were also raised by members from southern states over the Hindi nomenclature of the Bill. N.K. Premachandran, an MP from the Revolutionary Socialist Party representing Kollam in Kerala, said even the name of the Bill was difficult to pronounce.
He pointed out that under Article 348 of the Constitution, the text of any Bill introduced in Parliament must be in English unless Parliament decides otherwise.
DMK MP T.M. Selvaganapathy also criticised the government for naming laws and schemes only in Hindi. He said the Constitution clearly mandates that the nomenclature of a Bill should be in English so that citizens across the country can understand its intent.
Congress MP S. Jothimani from Tamil Nadu’s Karur constituency described the Bill as another attempt to impose Hindi and termed it “an attack on federalism.”
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