New Delhi, Feb 27 (PTI) In a major relief to the AAP’s top leadership, a Delhi court on Friday discharged former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, his former deputy Manish Sisodia and 21 others in the politically sensitive liquor policy case by refusing to take cognisance of the CBI chargesheet filed against them.
Among those discharged is Telangana Jagruthi president K Kavitha.
Special Judge Jitendra Singh criticised the CBI for lapses in the investigation, observing that there was no cogent evidence against Kejriwal and no prima facie case against Sisodia and the other accused.
The CBI has been probing alleged corruption in the formulation and implementation of the erstwhile AAP government’s now-scrapped excise policy.
Highlighting what he termed “misleading averments”, the judge said the voluminous chargesheet contained several lacunae that were not supported by evidence or witness statements.
“The chargesheet suffers from internal contradictions, striking at the root of the conspiracy theory,” he said.
The judge noted that in the absence of evidence, the allegations against Kejriwal could not be sustained and that he appeared to have been implicated without substantive material. He said such an approach was inconsistent with the rule of law.
With regard to Sisodia, the court said there was no material on record indicating his involvement, nor was any recovery made from him.
The court also observed that there was no overarching conspiracy or criminal intent established in connection with the excise policy. It said the agency’s case did not withstand judicial scrutiny, particularly where it attempted to build a narrative of conspiracy on conjecture.
The court further criticised the agency for relying on approver statements to build its case.
“If such conduct is allowed, it would be a grave violation of constitutional principles. Granting pardon to an accused and then using that person’s statements to fill gaps in the investigation and implicate additional persons is improper,” the court said.
The other accused who were discharged are 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. PTI