The Supreme Court on Tuesday said that if jailed Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is released on interim bail, he won't be allowed to perform official duties as it "may have a cascading effect".

However, there was no immediate relief for Kejriwal as the top court reserved its order on his bail plea.

"We will give you a date for the day after tomorrow. If it's not possible, we will keep it sometime next week. Next week is going to be very difficult," the bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta made the remarks while hearing the jailed Chief Minister's petition challenging his March 21 arrest by the Enforcement Directorate.

Also on Tuesday, Delhi's Rouse Avenue Court extended the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo's judicial custody till May 20 in connection to a money laundering case linked to the liquor policy case.

During the Supreme Court hearing, the two-judge bench asked senior lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for the jailed Chief Minister, whether Kejriwal would attend office, sign files and "give directions to others" if he was released on interim bail.

In response, he said that Kejriwal "won't be dealing with the excise case. He is a sitting Chief Minister".

The bench then said that if it decides to release the AAP chief, "we are very clear that we don't want you to be performing official duties since it may have a cascading effect".

"We do not want interference at all in the work of the government. It's your wish that you want to continue as Chief Minister. Today, it is not a question of legality but propriety. We are considering the interim bail just because of elections, else we wouldn't have considered it at all."

The top court also told the Enforcement Directorate that it would hear the bail arguments as Kejriwal is "the sitting Chief Minister of Delhi and needs to campaign for the Lok Sabha elections".

"This is an extraordinary situation. It is not like he is a habitual offender. Elections happen once in five years. It's not like harvesting a crop that will happen every four to six months. We need to consider on priority whether he should be released in the interim," the bench said.

"(Former Union Defence Minister) George Fernandes contested the elections from jail and won with such a huge margin of votes that it was the largest in Indian elections."

However, the ED refused the court's suggestion, saying it would set a "wrong precedent".

"A politician has no special rights as compared to normal citizens. Should all MPs and MLAs facing prosecution be released on bail?" it asked.

Singhvi has been asked to respond to the issues raised by the Enforcement Directorate.

The issues are, "Can a politician get special treatment compared to a common man. There are 5,000 facing prosecution. What if all of them say they want to campaign? Nine summons over six months? The ED cannot be blamed for choosing time; can interim bail be granted as they haven’t yet gone into evidence?."

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the LatestLaws staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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