A special bench in the apex court said, ‘The Supreme Court should not entertain a bail plea just because the petitioner is a political person’. The special bench stated while declining to consider Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) MLC K Kavitha’s bail petition in a money laundering case related to Delhi’s controversial 2021-22 excise policy.
The bench of justices Sanjiv Khanna, MM Sundresh, and Bela M Trivedi highlighted that the trial court should be the first to hear any bail request, and asked Kavitha to seek her remedy from the first tier of judicial hierarchy.
‘We are clear that just because someone is a political person or that he or she can come directly to the Supreme Court, we can bypass the procedure. We have to be very uniform in our practice. Everyone has to go through the trial court first’, the bench told senior counsel Kapil Sibal, who represented the BRS leader.
However, Kavitha was arrested by ED on March 15 in Hyderabad and was later brought to Delhi. She was arrested after a day-long questioning followed by a raid at her residence. On March 16, Delhi’s Rouse Avenue Court sent Kavitha to custodial remand until March 23.
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