NEW DELHI, Apr 3: After spending six months in jail, the Aam Aadmi Party leader and its Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh on Wednesday evening walked out of the Tihar jail on bail granted on Tuesday by the Supreme Court which noted that there was “no trace” of the money allegedly received as bribes by the AAP for allotting liquor licences.
Mr Singh was released after the SC bail order was received by the jail authorities and was welcomed by a massive crowd of AAP supporters who had gathered outside Tihar Jail, where Singh was lodged since October last year after being arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with its money laundering probe into alleged irregularities in the now scrapped Delhi excise policy.
Addressing the crowd, Mr Singh said, “This is the time to struggle. The biggest leaders of our party (AAP) – Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia and Satyendar Jain – have been kept behind the bars. I am confident that one day the locks of this prison will be broken and they will come out. This is why I want to say that this is not the time to celebrate, this is the time to struggle,” Singh said after his release.
Earlier in the day, a Delhi court setting conditions for his release on bail directed Singh not to tamper with evidence or influence witnesses in the case. Special Judge Kaveri Baweja also directed Singh to submit passport, inform it about itinerary before leaving NCR, and to always keep his phone location on.
In what is being seen as a political statement, Mr Singh went straight to the house of Mr Kejriwal, who was arrested in the case on March 21, to meet the Delhi chief minister’s wife, Sunita. He later went to the AAP office and addressed workers there.
Like Mr Kejriwal, Mr Singh was arrested by the ED, which is probing the money laundering angle in the Delhi liquor policy case. After the MP was granted bail on Tuesday, senior AAP leader and Delhi minister Atishi had said the Supreme Court’s order had vindicated the party’s stand on the agency being unable to trace the bribe money in the alleged scam and on the alleged coercion of witnesses.
Mr Kejriwal’s former deputy, Manish Sisodia, and BRS leader K Kavitha have also been arrested in the same case and the opposition parties have made the alleged misuse of central agencies by the BJP a central plank of their campaign for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. They have pointed out that the arrests of opposition leaders, coupled with the freezing of Congress’ accounts, have deprived them of a level playing field, which is crucial for free-and-fair elections.
Granting bail to Mr Singh on Tuesday, the Supreme Court had asked why he had been jailed for over six months without a trial or evidence of the alleged bribe paid to him by an accused-turned-approver. Stating that the order could not be treated as a precedent, the bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna, Dipankar Datta and Prasanna B Varale had, however, allowed Mr Singh to participate in political activities. This aspect may prove crucial for the AAP, whose campaign could get a fillip with less than three weeks to go for the start of the Lok Sabha polls.
The bail to Singh is a reprieve to the AAP whose top leaders are in judicial custody. AAP leaders have claimed that the court order “exposed” that the entire liquor scam case was based on statements “extorted” from witnesses and approvers.
(Manas Dasgupta)
