Delhi court turns down CM Kejriwal’s plea for medical consultation with his regular doc; calls report from AIIMS panel on insulin administration

New Delhi: A Delhi court on Monday turned down the application moved by incarcerated Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal seeking permission to consult a private doctor of his choice daily for 15 minutes through video conferencing for his acute diabetes and fluctuating blood sugar levels.

However, Special Judge Kaveri Baweja of Rouse Avenue Court stressed that the AAP leader be provided with adequate medical treatment while he remains under judicial custody.

The court ordered that in case, CM Kejriwal requires special consultation in jail, the prison authorities will consult the medical panel to be constituted by the Director of AIIMS Delhi.

This Medical Board will also prescribe a diet and exercise plan for CM Kejriwal considering his medical requirements and relevant data regarding his vital statistics.

In the meantime, CM Kejriwal can continue to have access to home-cooked food in terms of the earlier court order and the diet chart given by his private doctor, the judge clarified in her order.

Further, the court requested the medical panel to submit its report “at the earliest” specifying as to whether there is any requirement of administering Insulin to CM Kejriwal.

Last week, CM Kejriwal approached the court seeking direction to jail authorities to administer insulin to him and allow him to consult his regular doctor via video conferencing saying that his blood sugar level dropped to 46.

He also sought a direction that his wife Sunita Kejriwal should be allowed to join the virtual consultation with Dr Ravichandra Rao.

During the hearing, the probe agency alleged that CM Kejriwal was deliberately eating mangoes and other high-carb food in jail to raise his blood sugar levels to build a case for bail.

It said that CM Kejriwal was consciously consuming items like tea with sugar, banana, sweets, poori-aloo sabzi, etc. regularly, despite being a Type 2 diabetes patient, “knowing very well that consumption of such items results in an increase in sugar levels”, and that this is being done to create a medical emergency “to obtain sympathetic treatment from the court on medical grounds.”

On the other hand, senior Advocate Abhishek Singhvi, representing CM Kejriwal, accused the ED of misrepresenting the diet chart prepared by his doctor and opposed the agency’s allegations of deliberately increasing sugar levels, saying that he cannot risk “paralysis” just to get bail.

CM Kejriwal, who was arrested on March 21 by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the alleged excise policy scam, is lodged in Jail No. 2. He is under judicial custody till April 23.

–IANS