AAP questions Kejriwal's custody order

Says Kejriwal had been summoned thrice before in similar cases but Magistrates had agreed taking his undertaking instead of furnishing a bond

Aam Aadmi Party ideologue Yogendra Yadav said he was surprised at the Wednesday decision of a city magistrate to keep party chief Arvind Kejriwal in jail for non-payment of a bail bond.

Kejriwal was arrested on Wednesday after he refused to furnish a bail bond of Rs 10,000 (and a surety of a like amount) in a criminal defamation complaint filed against him by Nitin Gadkari, former national head of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Yadav said Kejriwal had been summoned thrice in similar cases but the magistrates in those had agreed to taking an undertaking from him, instead of furnishing a bond. “As a matter of fact, the other cases were more serious; two were non-bailable,” Yadav told Business Standard over telephone.

Those undertakings were in cases of defamation filed by the ex-Delhi chief minister’s then political secretary and by a senior advocate. Yadav was himself taken into custody for breaching the ban on assembly imposed around Tihar Jail, protesting Kejriwal's arrest. On Thursday, he was granted bail by a Delhi court.

Yadav defended Kejriwal’s decision to go to jail instead of paying a bond. “For some reason, which is not clear to me, the magistrate took a very different opinion and said you have to give a bond. And he (Kejriwal) rejected it on the simple ground that he refuses to be treated as a criminal. From our side, we didn’t do anything special on Wednesday. Somehow the judiciary has taken a very different view,” he said.

The party stated on Thursday that it would present Kejriwal’s stand on Friday, when the court will again hear the case. “There is no provision in criminal law that makes it mandatory for a defendant in a case of criminal defamation to furnish a surety bond when he is willing and ready to be present at every date of hearing,” the party said.

AAP said it would organise a door-to-door “public awareness campaign to remind the people about the involvement of Gadkari in mega land scams and his attempts to provide favours to private companies in Maharashtra”.