Delhi High Court on Thursday dismissed a plea seeking his removal from the Chief Minister's post following his arrest in the excise policy scam case. A bench headed by Acting Chief Justice Manmohan steered clear of commenting on the merits of the case, stating that judicial intervention would be overstepping its bounds.
"The examination of this matter in accordance with the law rests with other organs of the government," the bench observed during the hearing. When the petitioner's counsel, Surjit Singh Yadav, was asked to highlight the legal hurdle preventing Kejriwal from continuing as CM, the court remarked, "There may be practical complications, but that is a separate issue. Where is the legal bar?"
The ruling came amid high political drama in the national capital. A day earlier, legislators from the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) held parallel protests within the Delhi Assembly premises, trading barbs and raising slogans against each other's leaders.
While BJP MLAs demanded Kejriwal's resignation over the alleged irregularities, AAP legislators and supporters launched a vociferous counter-protest against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The confrontation reached its peak when AAP workers, donning yellow t-shirts, tailed the BJP's protest march while raising anti-Modi slogans.
Kejriwal's arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on March 21 had escalated the political tensions. The central agency had taken the Chief Minister into custody hours after the High Court declined to grant him protection from coercive action in the money laundering probe linked to the scrapped Delhi excise policy for 2021-22.
The case stemmed from a report filed in July 2022 by Delhi's Chief Secretary Naresh Kumar with the Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena. The report alleged procedural lapses in the formulation of the excise policy and claimed that "arbitrary and unilateral decisions" by AAP's Manish Sisodia, the then Excise Minister, had caused financial losses to the state exchequer exceeding Rs 580 crore.
With the High Court's ruling, Kejriwal has secured a temporary reprieve. However, the legal battle surrounding the excise policy scandal is far from over, and the embattled Chief Minister's political future hangs in the balance as the probe unfolds.
