“Insurance Arrest”: Abhishek Singhvi On CBI Action Against Arvind Kejriwal

Making a strong case for his client, senior lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi has said politics is writ large over Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal being arrested both by the Enforcement Directorate and the CBI in the alleged liquor policy scam and that the approach taken by the prosecution is not one that would be adopted by “prosecutors or even persecutors”.

In an exclusive interview with NDTV on Friday, Mr Singhvi also claimed that the CBI taking the AAP chief into custody soon after he was granted bail in the ED case is proof that politics was at play and went on to coin a new term for this: “insurance arrest”. 

The Congress leader’s comments came hours after the Supreme Court granted Mr Kejriwal bail in the case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act being investigated by the ED. The chief minister will, however,  remain in jail because he is yet to get relief in the case filed by the CBI.

When it was pointed out to him that the accused have been arrested by both CBI and the ED in the past, a combative Mr Singhvi said, “You are absolutely right, but just because something happens several times doesn’t make it right.”

“Consider four dates and four facts just for yourself. You don’t need to be a lawyer. The so-called liquor scam starts with documents registered officially in mid-2022. Mr Kejriwal is interrogated for nine hours by the CBI in mid-2023, one year later. He is arrested by the ED in March 2024 after the elections are announced and then arrested by the CBI, when he is already in custody, in June 2024,” he said. 

The senior advocate argued that the main offence in the case was filed by the CBI and the facts and context in the cases by both agencies were similar, raising the question of why there was a need to arrest Mr Kejriwal separately.

“Is he a flight risk, is he running away, is he interfering with witnesses? Why did you need to arrest him in June? This is nothing but mala fide writ large, politics writ large,” he said. 

Pointing out that Mr Kejriwal was questioned for nine hours by the CBI in 2023 and never after that, he claimed the chief minister being taken into custody in June reeked of an “insurance arrest” because the agencies knew that the case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act was weak.  

“The CBI case is going on. In fact, we have a stronger case in the CBI case because there’s no flight risk. But the government knows, the prosecutor knows that the process is the punishment. So they’re delaying it, they do an insurance arrest. Now I start a ladder from the bottom, then I go to the high court and Supreme Court and get relief. But you have achieved your purpose. You have prolonged (the stay in jail) by a few weeks… This is not the approach of prosecutors, it is not even the approach of persecutors,” he said.  

Referencing the Supreme Court order, Mr Singhvi said the bench had also stated that mere interrogation cannot be “a need or necessity” for arrest.