AAP comes all out to protest Kejriwal’s questioning by CBI; over 1,000 detained
The Hindu
AAP members hit the streets of the national capital in protest against the questioning of AAP national convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in connection with the alleged liquor scam at the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) headquarters on Sunday.
The rank and file of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), from Delhi and Punjab, hit the streets of the national capital in protest against the questioning of AAP national convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in connection with the alleged liquor scam at the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) headquarters on Sunday.
The allegation that the Delhi government’s now-scrapped 2021-22 excise policy favoured certain dealers led to an investigation by the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
The CBI headquarters, where the CM was questioned for over nine hours, was turned into a fortress, with multiple layers of barricading and a heavy deployment of police and paramilitary personnel.
At least 1,350 AAP leaders and workers were detained during the protests, the police said.
The detainees, including Rajya Sabha members Sanjay Singh and Raghav Chadha, Delhi Ministers Kailash Gahlot, Saurabh Bharadwaj and Atishi, Punjab Minister Harjot Singh Bains and AAP national general secretary Sandeep Pathak, were released later in the evening.
The police started rounding up AAP leaders soon after Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann, who reached the CBI headquarters with Mr. Kejriwal around 11 a.m., left the area around 2:45 p.m.
Speaking to The Hindu, Mr. Singh said the AAP chief had been called for questioning by the CBI “out of frustration” after he had spoken on the Modi-Adani issue in the Delhi Assembly.
“We are judges and therefore, cannot act like Mughals of a bygone era ... the writ courts in the guise of doing justice cannot transcend the barriers of law,” the High Court of Karnataka observed while setting aside an order of a single judge, who in 2016 had extended the lease of a public premises allotted to a physically challenged person to 20 years contrary to 12-year period stipulated in the law.
The High Court of Karnataka on Monday declined to interfere, at present, in the investigation against a Bharatiya Janata Party worker, who is among the accused persons facing charges of circulating obscene clips, related to “morphed” images and videos clips related to Prajwal Revanna, former Hassan MP, in public domain through pen drives and other modes.