After a lot of setbacks, finally a sunshine for Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal as Supreme on Friday granted interim bail in the money laundering case initiated by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in relation to the now scrapped Delhi Excise Policy.

A Bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta stated that certain legal questions raised by Kejriwal in his plea challenging his arrest need to be considered by a larger bench of the top court.

Hence, while referring the same to a larger bench, the Court deemed it fit to release Kejriwal on interim bail, as reported by BarandBench.

The Court said that the legal question regarding "necessity to arrest" under Section 19 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) need to be considered by a larger bench of the top court.

Section 19 provides that if the ED on the basis of material in its possession, has reason to believe (the reason for such belief to be recorded in writing) that any person has been guilty of an offence punishable under PMLA, it may arrest such person.

Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for Kejriwal, had argued that the material being cited by ED now to defend Kejriwal's arrest was not present during his arrest and was produced later.

There was no material in the "ground of arrest" given to Kejriwal about the use of funds in Goa elections, the senior counsel said.

Pertinently, Singhvi had argued that there should be a "necessity to arrest" as a precondition for arrest under Section 19 PMLA.

The Court today prima facie said that mere need to interrogate a person does not mean that there is a necessity to arrest the said person.

Whether need and necessity is about formal parameters of arrest and whether it can be read into Section 19 needs to be looked at by a larger bench, the top court said.

Hence, it referred the case to a larger bench while granting Kejriwal interim bail.

However, despite getting bail in the ED case, Kejriwal will continue to remain in jail since he is in custody in the case initiated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).