A Delhi court on Friday discharged all 23 individuals named in the CBI’s excise policy case, often referred to as the alleged liquor scam, including Aam Aadmi Party leaders and former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal as well as former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia.
The Central Bureau of Investigation said it will promptly challenge the trial court’s ruling in the high court, arguing that key findings and elements of its probe were overlooked or not sufficiently evaluated.
Following the verdict, Kejriwal became emotional while addressing reporters. “I am not corrupt. The court has said that Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia are honest,” he said before breaking down. He also described the excise case as the biggest political conspiracy in the history of independent India.
The decision was delivered by Special Judge Jitendra Singh, who stated that no material evidence had been found to support the prosecution’s claims against the accused. The court also declined to take cognisance of the CBI chargesheet linked to the excise policy allegations.
Kejriwal and Sisodia had been arrested during the investigation while they were serving as chief minister and deputy chief minister of Delhi respectively. The CBI had accused officials of corruption in framing and implementing the now scrapped excise policy introduced by the former AAP government.
Reacting to the order, Kejriwal said, “Court order proves Kejriwal and Aam Aadmi Party are ‘Kattar Imaandar’.”
Earlier in January, another Delhi court had acquitted Kejriwal in two Enforcement Directorate cases that accused him of skipping summons during its probe related to the same policy matter.
The CBI first filed a chargesheet in 2022 and later submitted multiple supplementary filings. Investigators alleged that ₹100 crore had been paid by a so called south lobby to influence the excise policy in its favour.
Altogether, 23 people were named in the case, including Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, K Kavitha, 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 Chadra Reddy.
