Bhagavad Gita, Home-cooked Food and Belt: List of Items Arvind Kejriwal Asked for in CBI custody

New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was taken into CBI custody for three days on Wednesday in relation to the liquor policy case. Delhi's Rouse Avenue Court, while approving Kejriwal's custody to the investigative agency, also granted his request for certain concessions during this period.

Apart from prescribed medications and meeting with his wife and relatives for one hour each day, the court has allowed the Chief Minister to keep a copy of the Bhagavad Gita and home-cooked meals. These requests have been granted, along with permission for him to retain his spectacles and his belt. 

The AAP supremo told the court that he read the Gita every evening before going to sleep. The Chief Minister also requested a belt, stating that he had to hold his pants while going to Tihar Jail, which he found "embarrassing." 

Kejriwal in CBI custody

On Wednesday, a Delhi court sent CM Kejriwal to the CBI's custody for three days after the central agency arrested him in a corruption case related to the alleged excise scam. The application seeking Kejriwal's arrest was moved by the CBI after the AAP leader was produced before the court from the Tihar jail, where he was lodged in judicial custody in a money-laundering case linked to the excise "scam" being probed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

Kejriwal will remain in the CBI's custody until his custodial interrogation in the corruption case comes to an end, which can go on for a maximum of 15 days.

If he fails to secure bail in both the cases being probed by the CBI and ED, he will go back to judicial custody once his police remand ends in the present case.

The court had, on June 19, extended Kejriwal's judicial custody in the money-laundering case till July 3.

In the application seeking the AAP leader's custody, the CBI told the court that he was required to be quizzed for unearthing the larger conspiracy in the matter. It said Kejriwal was required to be confronted with the other accused and evidence in the case.

Kejriwal claimed innocence before the court.

"It is being run in the media through CBI sources that I have a statement putting the entire blame on (former Delhi deputy chief minister) Manish Sisodia. I have not given any such statement that Sisodia or anyone else is guilty. I have said Sisodia is innocent, the AAP is innocent, I am innocent. Their entire plan is to defame us in the media. Please record that all these have been run in the media through CBI sources," Kejriwal told the court.

He also claimed that the agency is sensationalising the issue.

"It needs to be clarified. This will be the top headline in all the newspapers. Their aim is to sensationalise the matter," he told the court.

The CBI's counsel, however, said no sources had said any such thing.