India’s Supreme Court said Thursday that it has not made any exception for Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in granting him interim bail for campaigning in the Lok Sabha polls.

A bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Dipankar Datta refused to consider claims and counters of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Kejriwal's lawyer on statements made related to the interim bail to the Aam Aadmi Party national convener.

“We have not made any exception for anybody, we said in our order what we felt was justified,” the bench said, adding that critical analysis of the judgment is “welcome.”

On 10 May, the apex court granted interim bail to Kejriwal in a money laundering case related to the alleged Delhi excise policy scam. The court has also asked him to surrender on 2 June. The Delhi chief minister was arrested on 21 March.

“Our order is clear on when he has to surrender. We are the apex court and the rule of law shall be governed by this. We did not make an exception for anybody,” Justice Khanna responded to Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who appeared for the ED.

Mehta drew the bench’s attention to Kejriwal’s remark at a rally after his release from prison that if people voted for his party, he would not have to go back to jail on 2 June. “How can he say this?” Mehta said, to which the judges replied “we will not go into this.”