A Delhi court on Friday discharged all 23 accused in the Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI) excise policy case, also known as the alleged Delhi liquor scam, including former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, both senior leaders of the Aam Aadmi Party.
The order was passed by Special Judge Jitendra Singh, who said the court found no material on record to support the prosecution’s case against any of the accused. The court also refused to take cognisance of the CBI chargesheet filed in connection with the excise policy-linked corruption allegations.
Soon after the verdict, the Central Bureau of Investigation said it would immediately challenge the trial court’s decision in the high court, claiming that several aspects of its investigation were either ignored or not adequately considered.
Reacting to the ruling, Kejriwal told reporters that the court had declared both him and Sisodia honest. Visibly emotional, he described the excise case as the biggest political conspiracy in the history of independent India and said the verdict vindicated the Aam Aadmi Party’s claim of integrity. He later said the order proved that he and his party were “Kattar Imaandar” (absolutely honest).
Kejriwal and Sisodia were among those arrested by the CBI during its probe into alleged corruption in the formulation and implementation of the now-scrapped excise policy of the erstwhile AAP government in Delhi. Both were taken into custody while serving as chief minister and deputy chief minister respectively.
Earlier, in January, a Delhi court had acquitted Kejriwal in two cases filed by the Enforcement Directorate over allegations of evading summonses related to the same excise policy investigation.
The CBI had filed its first chargesheet in the case in 2022, followed by several supplementary chargesheets. The agency alleged that ₹100 crore was paid by a so-called “south lobby” to influence the excise policy in its favour.
Apart from Kejriwal and Sisodia, the chargesheet named several others, including K Kavitha, Vijay Nair, Abhishek Boinpally, Arun Ramchandra Pillai, Sameer Mahendru, Amandeep Singh Dhall, Durgesh Pathak, Amit Arora and P Sarath Chandra Reddy, according to a report by ANI.
#From Hindustan Times