NEW DELHI: Incarcerated Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday moved a city court urging it to allow him to spend more time with his lawyer in order to prepare his defence in cases pending against him in several parts of the country.
Kejriwal moved the application claiming that only two meetings every week with his counsel, as permitted by the court, was not sufficient since he was facing multiple cases in various states and needed more time for consultation. The AAP supremo urged the court to increase the number of meetings to five per week.
The application is likely to come up for hearing before special judge for Prevention of Money Laundering cases Kaveri Baweja on Friday.
The court had on April 1 sent Kejriwal to judicial custody till April 15 in the money laundering case linked to the alleged excise policy scam. The ED has accused the Chief Minister of being involved in the “entire conspiracy of liquor scam, in drafting and implementation of the policy, for favouring and benefiting from the quid pro, receiving kickbacks and eventually using part of proceeds of crime generated out of the scheduled offence in the election campaign for Goa Assembly elections”.
‘A normal visitor’
A day after Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann wrote to the Tihar administration seeking a meeting with jailed AAP head Arvind Kejriwal in the prisons, the authorities said he can meet his Delhi counterpart, but as a normal visitor in the ‘mulakat jangla’, an iron meshed room separating the inmate from the visitor. A visitor and an inmate can talk to each other by sitting on different sides of the mesh.
The officials of the Tihar jail, while confirming the letter from the Punjab CM to Tihar Director General Sanjay Baniwal, said the reply will be given “soon” to Mann’s office.
“Mann can meet Kejriwal but it can happen as a normal visitor meet in the ‘mulakat jangla’ in Tihar jail. The officials can make security arrangements as Mann is a chief minister and enjoys Z+ security cover,” an officer said. He said the letter from the Punjab CM has sought time and asked the Tihar adminstration to make necessary arrangements for their meeting in the prison premises.
The Chief Minister has given five names, including his wife, two children, his personal secretary Bibhav Kumar and AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sandeep Pathak, whom he can meet in the jail. The officer said Kejriwal will have to add Mann’s name in the list of visitors.
Mother’s support: Kavitha urges court for interim bail
BRS leader K Kavitha, arrested in the excise policy case, urged the court of Special Judge Kaveri Baweja on Thursday for interim bail, claiming that her 16-year-old son has exams and needs his mother’s “moral and emotional support”. The court heard the submissions made by Kavitha’s counsel and the ED, and reserved its order for Monday. Advocate Abhishek Singhvi, representing Kavitha, claimed that the perspective of a mother is not substitutable, saying, “There is trauma and shock about what has happened.”
