In a major relief to the Aam Aadmi Party’s top leadership, a Delhi court on Friday discharged former Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, former Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, Telangana Jagruthi president K. Kavitha, and 21 others in the politically sensitive excise policy case. The court refused to take cognisance of the CBI chargesheet, citing lack of cogent evidence and serious investigative lapses.
Special Judge Jitendra Singh criticised the CBI’s probe, observing that there was no prima facie case against Sisodia and no substantive material linking Kejriwal to the alleged conspiracy. The court said the voluminous chargesheet contained several lacunas, internal contradictions, and allegations not corroborated by evidence or witnesses, striking at the root of the conspiracy theory advanced by the agency.
The CBI has been investigating alleged corruption in the formulation and implementation of the now-scrapped excise policy introduced by the erstwhile AAP government. However, the court underlined the absence of any overarching conspiracy or criminal intent, noting that the agency’s case did not withstand judicial scrutiny.
The judge also expressed concern over what he termed “misleading averments” in the chargesheet and criticised the reliance on approver statements to fill investigative gaps. The court observed that granting pardon to an accused and subsequently using their statements to expand the scope of allegations against others would amount to a grave violation of constitutional principles if allowed.
Holding that the allegations against Kejriwal could not be sustained in the absence of evidence, the court said implicating a former chief minister without cogent proof was inconsistent with the rule of law. Regarding Sisodia, the court noted that there was no material on record demonstrating his involvement, nor any recovery made from him.
Besides Kejriwal, Sisodia, and Kavitha, the other accused discharged include Kuldeep Singh, Narender Singh, Vijay Nair, Abhishek Boinpally, Arun Ramchandra Pillai, Mootha Goutam, Sameer Mahendru, Amandeep Singh Dhall, Arjun Pandey, Butchibabu Gornatla, Rakesh Joshi, Damodar Prasad Sharma, Prince Kumar, Chanpreet Singh Rayat, Arvind Kumar Singh, Durgesh Pathak, Amit Arora, Vinod Chauhan, Ashish Mathur, and P. Sarath Chandra Reddy.
The CBI is expected to examine the detailed order before deciding its further course of action.
