Delhi HC allows Kejriwal additional meetings with lawyers

The Delhi high court allowed Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal to have two additional virtual legal meetings with his lawyer in jail in a week, saying that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief’s request to discuss the way forward with his counsels regarding the cases pending against him throughout the country could not be termed unreasonable.

A bench of justice Neena Bansal Krishna said that special situations called for special remedies.

“However, when balancing the policy with the fundamental rights of the jail inmate, the request of the petitioner for two additional legal meetings with his lawyers through video conferencing, in the given circumstance of huge number of cases pending against him, cannot be termed unreasonable,” the court said in its July 18 order, which was released on Thursday.

The judge said, “Special situations call for special remedies. In view of the foregoing discussion, it is held that in recognition of the fundamental right of fair trial and effective legal representation, the petitioner be granted two additional legal meetings with the counsel through video conferencing in a week, till he is confined to jail.”

Kejriwal had approached the high court against a city court’s April 10 and July 1 orders, rejecting his plea seeking additional meetings with his lawyers.

Currently, the AAP chief is allowed two meetings with his lawyer in a week.

In his petition before the high court, Kejriwal represented through senior advocate Ramesh Gupta said that he was facing litigation in courts of Punjab, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Goa, Assam and Delhi and he required thorough legal consultation with his lawyers to discuss strategies involved in defending different cases. The petition underscored that the city court’s subsequent order of rejecting the plea was without application of mind.

Opposing the relief, the Enforcement Directorate (ED), represented by special counsel Zoheb Hossain, had argued that the CM’s plea was bereft of reason for the need to have additional meetings and the city court had rightly rejected the former’s prayers after noting that the same was misused to dictate certain directions onto the water minister.

In its 11-page order, the court shot down ED and Tihar jail superintendent’s contention that Kejriwal’s petition was infructuous since his claim pertained to the orders made in the money laundering case, in which he had been released on interim bail by the Supreme Court on July 12.

Taking note of the fact that the pendency of cases against the CM and his continued custody in the corruption case registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the Delhi excise policy case, justice Krishna said that confining the fundamental right of fair trial to a particular case and insisting on independent applications would result in taking a “myopic view.”

“To confine this fundamental right to a particular case and to insist on an independent application in each case, is not only taking a myopic view but would result in multiplicity of similar relief being asserted in different cases; in fact it can lead to utter confusion if such relief is considered a pertaining to individual case and not individual person. To ask the petitioner to move independent application in each case would lead to delay but may indirectly be denying him the right of effective legal help. Moving such applications in individual cases is also likely to lead to multiplicity of similar applications and in fact, can result in unnecessary delay. This is significant since the cases are pending not only in Delhi but also in various other states,” the court said.

Justice Krishna also rejected ED’s and prison authorities’ contention that the petition was nothing but a whimsical attempt to seek special treatment contrary to the prescribed rules that govern all under-trial prisoners equally.

Kejriwal has been in custody since March 21 following his arrest by ED, apart from a 21-day interim bail in May granted by the top court for Lok Sabha election campaigning. On July 12, the Supreme Court granted interim bail to Kejriwal in the ED case, acknowledging that he has spent over 90 days in incarceration.

The case against the CM stems from allegations of irregularities in Delhi’s now-scrapped excise policy of 2021-22, which the CBI began probing following a recommendation by Delhi’s lieutenant governor in July 2022.

On June 26, he was arrested by the CBI in the Rouse Avenue Court after a sequence of dramatic developments in court.

In the remand note, the agency alleged that Kejriwal is “one of the main conspirators of the criminal conspiracy” and said that Vijay Nair, a former party functionary, was contacting various liquor manufacturers and traders and demanding undue gratification since March 2021.