Excise scam: Delhi court discharges Kejriwal, Sisodia, Kavitha and 20 others

In a major setback to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), a Delhi court on Friday discharged former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, his former deputy Manish Sisodia and 21 others in the alleged liquor policy scam case, refusing to take cognisance of the agency’s chargesheet.

Among those discharged is K. Kavitha, president of Telangana Jagruthi. The case pertains to alleged irregularities in the formulation and implementation of the now-scrapped excise policy of the erstwhile AAP government in Delhi.

Special judge Jitendra Singh delivered a strongly worded order, sharply criticising the CBI’s investigation. The court observed that there was no cogent evidence against Kejriwal and no prima facie material linking Sisodia or the other accused to any criminal conspiracy. It said the voluminous chargesheet contained “misleading averments”, internal contradictions and serious lacunae not corroborated by documentary evidence or witness testimony.

“The chargesheet suffers from internal contradictions, striking at the root of the conspiracy theory,” the judge noted, adding that in the absence of substantive evidence, the allegations against Kejriwal could not be sustained. Implicating an accused without cogent material, the court said, was inconsistent with the rule of law.

With regard to Sisodia, the court found no material demonstrating his involvement in any wrongdoing and recorded that no recovery had been made from him. It also rejected the CBI’s overarching conspiracy narrative, observing that the agency appeared to have constructed its case on conjecture rather than solid proof.

The court was particularly critical of the reliance on approver statements. It cautioned that granting pardon to an accused and subsequently using their testimony to “fill gaps” in the investigation and implicate others would amount to a grave violation of constitutional principles.

Besides Kejriwal, Sisodia and Kavitha, those 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 ruling marks a significant development in the politically sensitive excise policy case, dealing a blow to the CBI’s prosecution strategy and offering substantial relief to the top leadership of the Aam Aadmi Party.

With PTI inputs