The Supreme Court’s decision to grant interim bail again to Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal is a significant legal development in the long-running saga of Enforcement Directorate action against a prominent politician belonging to the Opposition camp. The order, however, does not go far enough to remove many complications surrounding Mr Kejriwal’s status now even as he is to stay in jail as a court, on the same day, extended further his judicial custody in the corruption case linked to the same excise scam that the CBI has filed against him.
Nor is Mr Kejriwal free to go to the chief minister’s office since the same conditions as were applicable to his two-week interim bail for election campaigning exist. The point is, regardless of guilt being proven or innocence established in alleged money laundering linked to a funding scandal relating to liquor licensing that is often used for political purposes, the interim status is an unsatisfactory situation that the judiciary alone can unravel.
Mr Kejriwal’s right to life has been recognised even as the issue has been referred to a larger bench and the court has also rapped the executive for arresting a person merely for interrogation although parts of the judiciary have had to rule for the extension of judicial custody given the stringent, almost draconian, provisions of the PMLA Act.
The point, again, is whether the executive, the investigating agencies and courts that have enabled the process to be the punishment itself, as seems to be the case in the 90 days-plus incarceration of Mr Kejriwal, should be allowed to continue the status quo without the prosecution in the case moving forward as it ideally should to allow a final judgment to be delivered.
It stands to reason that anyone accused of financial crimes and corruption in high places should be enlarged on bail — a condition which the highest court often ruled should be the norm — and the cases speedily concluded. It is no one’s argument that a chief minister’s constitutional post places him beyond the pale of arrest. At least one of them has been a convicted felon more than once and several others used the slow pace of the country’s judicial system to escape major punishment.
It was sagacious of the judiciary not to rule on Mr Kejriwal’s continuance as chief minister, which is in the realm of moral principles. There are no laws against an accused continuing in public office, a privilege politicians enjoy but which Mr Hemant Soren of Jharkhand declined as he stepped down and returned to his seat when it was found there was no case against him.
The chief minister who was elected to high office on an anti-corruption plank has chosen a different path though he finds himself in the peculiar position of being a CM who cannot go to his office. Such piquant situations can be avoided if only the laws are different and accused are enlarged on general bail until they prove their innocence. That brings us right back to the ideal by which cases are brought to trial and disposed of speedily, no matter how influential the personality may be.
