A Delhi court on Wednesday rejected Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s plea seeking more time with his legal team while in jail, saying the leader has used the permitted meetings with lawyers to pass orders to his Cabinet colleagues rather than holding discussions on the cases lodged against him.
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The Rouse Avenue court said the Chief Minister has failed to convince it that he has been using the permitted two meetings per week for discussions on pending litigation against him.
“The status report filed by the investigating agency [ED] indicates that the applicant had directed certain directions for being passed on to the Water Minister [Atishi] to one of his lawyers [whose name he refused to disclose to the investigating agency] during the course of a legal meeting,” Special Judge Kaveri Baweja said.
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The court added that Mr. Kejriwal had submitted during the arguments that there are about 30-35 cases pending against him.
It said there exists no objective criteria to prove that five meetings with his lawyers per week would be sufficient to address his concerns or that two meetings, which are permitted as per jail rules, are insufficient for this purpose.
“In the absence of any such objective criteria for assessment, the prayer of the applicant for five legal interviews with his lawyers per week not only appears to be whimsical but also seems to have been made without any statistical basis or objective standards for assessment,” the court noted.