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New Delhi:

Aam Aadmi Party leader Sanjay Singh’s mother Radhika Singh could not hold back her tears as she spoke to NDTV after her son was granted bail by the Supreme Court today, nearly six months after the Enforcement Directorate, or ED, arrested him in the Delhi liquor policy case.

“Yeh khushi ke aansu hain (These are tears of happiness),” she told NDTV.

The Rajya Sabha MP was arrested from his home in the national capital on October 4, 2023. Moments before the ED officials took him away, Mr Singh walked into his mother’s room and touched her feet. He sought her blessings and walked out before she could even react.

“When he walked in that day and touched my feet, I thought he had come to sit with me. Who knew he was being arrested? His arrest shocked me so much that I just wept. We thought how could this happen when they had found no evidence against him?” she told NDTV today.

Watch: AAP MP Sanjay Singh touches mother’s feet before probe agency officials take him away pic.twitter.com/1k98voTXcX

— NDTV (@ndtv) October 4, 2023

“We didn’t know anything about his arrest. We only knew they (the probe agencies) had found nothing against him. We were certain that he would not be arrested. So when he came to touch my feet, I had no idea. Then everyone started saying he was being taken away and when I saw him sign a paper, I found out they were taking him. I was so distraught, I cried a lot,” she added.

The news of his son’s bail was sudden but not unexpected, she said.

“The news of his bail was sudden and made me very happy. Why wouldn’t he get bail? He is innocent. He was honest and not corrupt. I was confident he would never be arrested. But then he was… It is fine… The one who has power will…” she trailed off.

Sanjay Singh is also the first top AAP leader to get bail in the case. “Yes, he is the first AAP leader to get bail in connection with the case. I am very happy. I am thanking God all the time for his bail,” Ms Singh said.

Sanjay Singh was released today after the ED said it did not want his further custody. The agency told the court it would concede bail to Mr Singh “without going into the merits” of his argument.

The Supreme Court, however, posed several questions to the ED and asked why he was jailed for over six months without a trial or recovery of the alleged bribe of Rs 2 crore.

“Nothing has been recovered… there is no trace (of the Rs 100 crore the AAP allegedly received as bribes for allotting liquor licences to the ‘South Group’)…” the top court told ED.

Mr Singh was arrested on money laundering charges and has been in Delhi’s Tihar Jail since his arrest in October last year in the alleged excise policy scam, which has seen the arrests of Manish Sisodia and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal weeks before a crucial general election.

The AAP leader’s previous bail pleas were all turned down, with the High Court saying in February that “no ground” for relief had been made.