HC to hear on 8 July Kejriwal's plea for additional meetings with lawyers

The Delhi High Court is scheduled to hear on Monday, 8 July, a plea by chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, arrested in the Delhi excise 'scam' cases, seeking additional meetings with his lawyers.

The plea is listed for hearing before justice Neena Bansal Krishna.

Kejriwal has challenged a trial court's 1 July order rejecting his application for directions to the prison authorities for granting two additional meetings in a week with his lawyers through video conferencing.

Presently, he is allowed two meetings with his lawyers in a week.

In the plea before the trial court, Kejriwal said he was facing around 30 litigations across the country and on the grounds of the right to a fair trial, he required two additional meetings with his lawyers through video conferencing to discuss the cases.

The trial court rejected the plea, saying the counsel for the applicant had failed to convince the court as to how the applicant was entitled to two additional legal meetings through video conferencing on the same grounds which have been discussed and dealt with in the earlier order.

In separate petitions, Kejriwal has challenged his arrest in the corruption case registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in connection with the alleged excise policy scam and also sought bail.

Both the petitions are pending before the high court.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener was arrested by the CBI on June 26 from Tihar Jail, where he is still lodged in judicial custody in a connected money laundering case filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

Kejriwal, who was arrested by the ED on 21 March, was granted bail by the trial court in the money laundering case on 20 June. However, the trial court's order was stayed by the high court.

The excise policy was scrapped in 2022 after the Delhi lieutenant governor ordered a CBI probe into alleged irregularities and corruption involving its formulation and execution.

According to the CBI and ED, irregularities were committed while modifying the excise policy and undue favours extended to the licence holders.