Supreme Court on Monday questioned Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal for not appearing
before Enforcement Directorate despite repeated summons after he argued that his
arrest was illegal as the agency took the step without recording his statement.

“Are you not contradicting yourself by saying that your statement under Section 50 of
Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) was not recorded? You don’t appear on
summons for recording of statement under Section 50 and then you say it was not
recorded,” a bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta told senior advocate
Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who appeared for Kejriwal.

Singhvi said non-cooperation by an accused in a probe could not be a ground for arrest
and non-appearance following summons was not an admission of guilt. Questioning the
timing of the arrest, he said the case was registered one-and-a-half years ago but
Kejriwal was arrested after dates of the general elections were announced. He said the
CM’s name did not figure in the first nine statements given by other accused and but the
name cropped up in the 10th statement and that became the ground for arrest.

Pitching his arguments on political lines, Singhvi said of the three approvers in the case,
one joined the central governing party (BJP), the second joined the party’s ally TDP and
the third contributed to the party through electoral bonds.