New Delhi [India], February 27 : The Rouse Avenue court on Friday discharged former Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, his deputy Manish Sisodia, K Kavitha and all other Accused persons. The court said that there is no evidence to proceed further accsued persons.
Special CBI Judge Jitendra Singh discharged all accsued persons from this case. While discharging the Accused persons court pointed out lacunae in the investigation done by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
The court said that there was no evidence against Accused Kuldeep Singh, then Deputy Excise commissioner, but he was made an Accused by the CBI. While pointing a finger at the CBI investigation, the court recommended a departm ental inquiry against the investigation officer. The court said to Kuldeep singh " No material found against you. I am surprised why you are implicated."
While discharging Manish Sisodia, the court said that the allegations failed judicial scrutiny. " There is no criminal intent on his part. In this situation, the conspiracy theory can not survive against him, the court said.
" The central conspiratorial role against cannot be sustained," the court said while discharging Arvind Kejriwal from the Delhi Excise policy case.
The court also made an oral observation that the person holding a constitutional post, his right should be protected from implications without any basis. The court said that profit fixation was determined after a discussion and deliberation of the government, and policy was framed after approval from the LG.
The court pointed out that the confessional statement of the star Prosecution witness was not filed in the charge sheet. The entire case is based on his statement, but it is not there in the charge sheet. The court also said that Dinesh Arora changed his statement several times. These statements were also not file. The court objected to the word South Group. Who coined this word, the judge asked? Could the CBI use this word if this charge sheet was filed in the Chennai Court, the court asked.
The court also referred to a judgement delivered by an American Court that set aside the conviction over the use of the word Dominican against the Accused persons. The court said that every citizen has the right to a fair trial. The court also said that IO should put the facts correctly. The facts are different from what the witness stated.
On February 12, the court had reserved the order after hearing submissions on behalf of CBI and the accused persons, including Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia and 21 others.
At the time of filing of the case, Arvind Kejriwal was the chief minister and Manish Sisodia was the deputy chief minister of Delhi. The CBI had filed the first charge sheet in 2022, and thereafter, supplementary charge sheets were filed. It was alleged that Rs 100 crore was paid by the south lobby to influence the proposed Delhi Excise policy in their favour.
In this case, there are 23 accused charge sheeted by the CBI, 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.
The CBI had submitted that the offence of Conspiracy has to be seen in its entirety. The value of evidence is to be tested at the stage of trial. There is sufficient material to frame charges against the accused persons, the CBI said.
ASG DP Singh alongwith advocate Manu Mishra, represented the CBI. It was submitted that there is sufficient material to frame a charge against all the accused persons. Senior advocate N Hariharan had argued that there is no material to frame charges against Arvind Kejriwal.
On January 17, Senior counsel N Hariharan had submitted to Former CM Arvind Kejriwal that nothing is incriminating against him is there, and the charge sheet against him is a cut-and-paste job of the previous charge sheet. He was doing his official duty as the Chief Minister.
Senior counsel had argued that Kejriwal was doing his official duty. There is no link of evidence to show that he asked anyone to take money from the south lobby. Kejriwal was not named in the first charge sheet, nor in the 3 supplementary charge sheets. His name came in 4 the supplementary charge sheet.
It was also submitted that the Subject matter of the 4 charge sheets is also the subject matter of the previous charge sheets. It is a cut and paste allegations against Kejriwal. During the arguments, senior counsel had also addressed the issue of Permission for further investigation. Need of further investigation is to be looked into.
Further evidence should be such which shows the guilt of the Accused found with permission of the court, senior counsel N Hariharan submitted. It was added that the 4th charge sheet is nothing but repackaging with the intent to implicate a person who was doing his official duty.
The court asked the senior counsel to elaborate on the statement of Magunta, who has turned approver. It is alleged that someone asked Magunta to pay money on behalf of Kejriwal. It was submitted that Raghav Magunta was made an approver who was an accsued earlier.
Senior advocate had submitted that there is no link which shows that Kejriwal had asked anyone to take money from the south lobby.