AA Edit | Bail for Kejriwal overdue, but why so many conditions?

Prolonged incarceration — in his case six months except for a short break — that is owed to a deliberate ploy by authorities to make the criminal prosecution process itself a punishment — has been commented upon adversely.

The excise policy change case and related offences tagged to it like exchange of huge sums of graft money should help define the laws that allow the federal authorities to make such arrests with a motive that could range from political to practical aspects of prevention or prosecution of high financial crimes by those in power in the states.

Mr Kejriwal’s belated arrest by the CBI on the same charges after bail being granted under the stricter PMLA law (Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002) was the trigger on which the interpreters of the law pounced, who in this case were judges of the Supreme Court who overruled their colleagues in the Delhi high court while also granting relief under PMLA charges.

Having often said that bail is the rule and jail the exception, the top court had to make a definitive ruling in Mr Kejriwal’s case as he spent time in Tihar Jail long after having been granted interim bail to canvass support in the Lok Sabha elections. His was a clear case of targeted harassment since he was the last major figure among those charged in the excise case and still behind bars in a case that has hardly come to trial.

It is irrelevant that the sensational arrest of a chief minister on graft charges — not the first in India — meant little politically as Mr Kejriwal’s party AAP may have still suffered the same fate in the 2024 elections as it did in 2019 in Delhi’s Lok Sabha constituencies. It is a sad commentary on Indian politics that any action aimed at fighting corruption becomes political and even bail has become akin to a political victory.

It is another matter that he continued as chief minister from jail that made some kind of strange history in democratic India since many others who found themselves in the same predicament, including most recently Hemant Soren of Jharkhand, resigned their posts until they were granted bail. Awaiting the conclusion of cases and proving innocence on the not so speedy wheels of Indian justice that roll on ever so slowly is a battle against time not all can afford.

It will remain a curious matter that the aims to balance liberty and the need for cases to proceed until the charges are proved wrong or evidence insubstantial in court remain unfulfilled. And a CM who has been released on bail while he awaits prosecution is still a manacled chief executive of a government who cannot attend office or sign any files.

While he will not be a lame duck CM in the Indian way of doing things by proxy, his position is still a tenuous one that need not have been imposed on him. If bail is the rule, it could have been unconditional save from statutory cautions on interfering with witnesses or trying to influence the course of justice. The idea that justice must not only be done but also be seen to be done seems to have prevailed.