'My liberty at stake': Manish Sisodia applies for bail in liquor policy case

‘My liberty at stake’: Manish Sisodia applies for bail in liquor policy case

Delhi’s former Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia’s lawyer, seeking his bail, told a Delhi court on Saturday that his plea seeking regular bail was valid, saying that Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader’s “liberty is at stake”.

This comes after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) questioned the maintainability of his regular bail plea on grounds that his curative petition against the Supreme Court’s order denying him bail is still pending. Sisodia is lodged in Delhi’s Tihar jail in connection with a money laundering case related to allged excise policy ‘scam’.

After the Supreme Court denied him bail in both CBI and ED cases last year, Sisodia filed a petition seeking a review of the order. After his review petition was dismissed, he challenged the same through a curative petition which is still pending before the top court.Â

According to his lawyer Mohit Mathur, the fact that this curative petition is pending before the Supreme Court will have no impact on his right to seek bail, liberty of which was granted to him by the top court itself.Â

“Here my liberty is at stake and the liberty was granted by the court to approach for bail,” Sisodia’s lawyer said.Â

Sisodia’s lawyer also said that the mere filing of a curative cannot put him in a worse off situation than the impugned order that he has challenged in the curative petition itself.Â

However, the lawyers representing the probe agency argued that Sisodia’s curative petition can only focus on the same issues he raised in his review petition. In the review petition, the AAP leader must show that there is a clear mistake in the original judgment, the probe agency stated.

The court raised the question of whether simply filing a curative petition should prevent Sisodia from seeking bail. It pointed out that the curative petition hasn’t reached the stage where it’s decided if it should be heard.

The lawyers from the Enforcement Directorate disagreed, saying Sisodia shouldn’t be allowed to seek the same relief in two different places.

If Sisodia’s curative petition is accepted, his request for bail would go back to where it started, resulting in two separate legal proceedings.

The court hasn’t made a decision about whether Sisodia’s bail plea is valid yet. It will announce its decision on February 21.

Watch Live TV in English

Watch Live TV in Hindi