The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
Sending Kejriwal’s plea for bail extension to CJI: SC
request before Justice Dipankar Datta, one of the judges on the benchwhichgrantedhiminterim bail, while he was holding court until May 24.
“Why did you not mention this matter when Justice Datta was here?” Justice Maheshwari asked. “Why didn’t you mention it?whydidyouwait?...oneofthe learned members of the bench was holding court until Friday,” Justice Viswanathan asked.
Singhvi replied that the “prescription for tests” were “obtained… only yesterday and the day before”.
“Iwouldhavenoproblemputting it before the two learned judges on virtual (mode) also,” he said. Justice Maheshwari said “in heardandreservedmatters,probably we are not supposed to do anything”.
The bench said it will refer the mattertothecjiasanotherbench hadalreadyheardandreservedits order on May 17.
Singhvi pointed out that the matter in which the court had reserved its order on May 17 was Kejriwal’spetitionchallenginghis arrest and had nothing to do with medical grounds.
Heurgedthebenchtolistitfor hearingwednesday“orwhatever is Your Lordships’ convenience”.
Justice Maheshwari said, “What we will do is we will refer this mentioning memo to the Hon’ble Chief Justice. Let the CJI take a decision.”
Singhvi said, “I have no problem… There is urgency because I got a 20-day window for campaigning that ends. Then I have to go for the medical tests. So I wanteda7-dayextension.itisnot an abuse because I am asking for 7 days only.”
Inhisplea,kejriwalhassought tosurrenderonjune9.sayingthat he lost 6-7 kg during the period of his arrest, Kejriwal said in his plea that he could not regain weight even after his release.
He said sudden and unexplainedweightloss,coupledwith high ketone levels, could be indicative of kidney damage, serious cardiac ailments and even cancer,andearlydetectionwasessential for preventing further progress of the disease and associated life risks.
He said he suffered many health-relatedcomplicationsduringhisarrest,andblameditpartly on what he called the negligent and callous behaviour of jail authorities.
Recent test reports pointed to highbloodglucoselevelaswellas high ketone levels in urine which indicate that in addition to increased blood sugar, he may have also developed kidney related complications and even kidney damage, he said.
Accordingtokejriwal’splea,a senior physician from Max Hospital visited him at his residence on May 25 for a health check-up and prescribed a number of medical tests including whole body PET-CT scan to rule out any malignancy, and the Holtermonitortest,wherehewill berequiredtowearaholtermonitor for a few days while going about his daily activities to identify any irregularities in the functioningofhisheart.thesetests,his plea said, are to be done in a particular sequence and require fiveseven days.
Sayingthathislifewouldbeat riskifhedidnotundergothetests, Kejriwal said he would get all the tests done in the working week from June 3 to June 7, and surrender on June 9.