KEJRIWAL ARREST

had said the petition would be heard during the day.

The move came soon after the Supreme Court refused to grant bail to BRS leader K Kavitha, who has also been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in the Delhi excise policy scam case. The ED has claimed that Kavitha, a BRS MLC and daughter of former Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao, was a key member of the south cartel.

A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna, MM Sundresh and Bela M Trivedi asked Kavitha to approach the trial court, saying it is a practice which this court is following and cannot bypass the protocol.

The Aam Aadmi Party has called his arrest a “political conspiracy” to stop him from campaigning in the Lok Sabha polls.

Protests erupted in the national capital over Kejriwal’s arrest with hundreds of AAP workes and supporters hitting the streets. Raising slogans “Arvind tum sangharsh karo, hum tumhare sath hain” and “tyranny won’t last”, they converged near the AAP offices.

Many of them, including Atishi and Saurabh Bharadwaj, two key ministers in the Kejriwal cabinet, were detained. They were taken away in police buses after they refused to disperse from ITO intersection, which is close to the AAP and BJP offices, violating section 144.

While accusing Kejriwal of being the “kingpin” of the alleged scam, the ED has alleged the party’s communication incharge Vijay Nair functioned as his link to the south cartel, which gave the Delhi’s ruling party kickbacks of Rs 100 crore in return for favours by way of wholesale and retail liquor licences.

These funds, it claimed, were used for the assembly elections in Goa and significant amounts of money were given to AAP candidates in cash.

Meanwhile, AAP leaders have alleged that Kejriwal’s family has been placed under house arrest at the chief minister’s official residence in Civil Lines,