Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Sanjay Singh on Wednesday walked out of jail a day after the Supreme Court granted him bail in a money laundering case linked to the alleged Delhi excise scam.
The Rajya Sabha MP, who was greeted by large crowds and much fanfare, said that though he was free, AAP must “continue its struggle”. “This is not the time to celebrate. We need to continue our struggle. Our party’s senior leaders – Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia and Satyendar Jain – are still behind bars. Jail ke taale tutenge, hamare saare neta chhutenge (The locks of their prison will be broken and all our leaders will come out),” he said, minutes after walking out of Tihar jail.
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Mr. Singh visited the Chief Minister’s residence to meet Mr. Kejriwal’s wife, Sunita. He then left for the AAP headquarters to address party workers, who greeted him with chants of “kaun wapas aaya, sher aaya (who is back, the lion is back)”.
In his first address since his arrest, Mr. Singh slammed the BJP over corruption and the “motivated” harassment of the Opposition.
“They [BJP] want to arrest our leaders, including Raghav Chadha, Atishi, and Durgesh Pathak. They pressured our Minister, Kailash Gahlot, and questioned him for four-and-a-half hours. What is this if not a mark of BJP’s dictatorship?” he said, adding that the Prime Minister should take note that all AAP leaders were “standing firm” with Mr. Kejriwal.
“The BJP is trying to find our money trail, but the BJP itself is wrapped head-to-toe in the excise policy scam,” Mr. Singh said.
“We are the party born from the womb of protest. We will not give up. The Chief Minister will not resign,” he said. “They will question us how the government can run from jail, but when I was in prison, I read the law there. No one can stop us from issuing official letters,” he added.
He said that he would also soon visit the residences of jailed AAP leaders Manish Sisodia and Satyendar Jain, because the party was a “family”.
Conditions on bail
While a Delhi court earlier on Wednesday accepted Mr. Singh’s bail bond, it imposed some conditions on his release, including orders to not “tamper with evidence” or “influence witnesses” in the ongoing investigation being carried out by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
Special Judge Kaveri Baweja of the Rouse Avenue court directed the AAP leader to furnish a bail bond of ₹2 lakh and a surety bond of the same amount, which was deposited by his wife Anita Singh.
Among the other conditions imposed on Mr. Singh were orders that he must keep his Google location services on at all times. Mr. Singh was also made to surrender his passport and is barred from leaving the country. He must also join the investigation as and when required, the judge added.
“Mr. Singh was asked to provide his phone number to the investigating officer and ordered to mandatorily share a detailed itinerary with him,” the court said.
Zoheb Hossain, special counsel for the ED, submitted in court that as per a condition set by the Supreme Court, Mr. Singh cannot speak to the media regarding his role in the case.
The AAP leader, who walked out of jail after spending more than six months in custody, was arrested by the ED last October. The case in which he was implicated is linked to an ED probe based on an FIR registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation. The FIR had alleged irregularities in the framing and implementation of the excise policy, including modifications made to extend undue favours to licence holders in return for monetary favours.
