A Delhi court on Friday discharged former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, his then deputy Manish Sisodia, and 21 others, including Telangana MLC K. Kavitha, in the alleged excise policy scam, a case that has fueled political controversy for months. Special Judge Jitender Singh ruled there was no evidence of criminal conspiracy or wrongdoing in the formulation of the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy.
The court’s decision, delivered in the Rouse Avenue Court, closes the case initiated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against all accused. Judge Singh stated that “there was no overarching conspiracy or criminal intent in the excise policy,” according to reports. The case stemmed from a complaint filed by Delhi’s Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena in 2022, leading to the CBI’s investigation and subsequent First Information Report.
The CBI had alleged that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and its leaders received kickbacks from liquor manufacturers through manipulation of the excise policy. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) also launched a parallel investigation under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The Delhi government initially implemented the new excise policy on November 17, 2021, but scrapped it in late September 2022 following allegations of corruption. The policy had increased the profit margin for wholesalers from 5 percent to 12 percent, a change the CBI argued facilitated cartelization and favored ineligible entities for liquor licenses in exchange for monetary benefits.
Manish Sisodia, who served as the Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi, had consistently denied any wrongdoing, asserting that the new policy would have increased revenue for the city government. The court, however, found no material demonstrating his involvement in any wrongdoing and noted that no recovery had been made from him.
The court’s order sharply criticized the CBI’s investigation, stating that the chargesheet contained “misleading averments,” internal contradictions, and lacked corroboration from documentary evidence or witness testimony. The judge observed that the agency appeared to have constructed its case on conjecture rather than solid proof. The court specifically rejected the CBI’s overarching conspiracy narrative.
The judge also took issue with the agency’s reliance on statements from approvers, warning that such reliance could undermine constitutional safeguards. The court stated that granting pardon to an accused and then using their testimony to fill investigative gaps or implicate others was improper and would violate constitutional principles.
In a further rebuke to the CBI, the court recommended a departmental inquiry against CBI officials for naming a public servant, Kuldeep Singh, as the primary accused in the case.
Those discharged alongside Kejriwal and Sisodia include Kuldeep Singh, Narender Singh, Vijay Nair, Abhishek Boinpally, Arun Ramchandra Pillai, Mootha Goutam, Sameer Mahendru, Amandeep Singh Dhall, Arjun Pandey, Butchibabu Gorantla, Rajesh Joshi, Damodar Prasad Sharma, Prince Kumar, Arvind Kumar Singh, Chanpreet Singh Rayat, K Kavitha, Durgesh Pathak, Amit Arora, Vinod Chauhan, Ashish Chand Mathur, and Sarath Chandra Reddy.
The CBI has indicated its intention to challenge the Delhi court’s decision in the Delhi High Court, signaling a continuation of the legal battle surrounding the excise policy case.