New Delhi, February 27 A Delhi court on Friday acquitted former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, his deputy Manish Sisodia, and 21 others in the politically charged liquor policy case, criticizing the CBI for finding no "overarching conspiracy or criminal intent" in the policy.
Among the 21 people given a clean chit in the case is Telangana Jagruthi president K Kavitha.
In a scathing indictment of the CBI, special judge Jitendra Singh refused to take cognizance of the CBI chargesheet against them. He also observed that the federal agency's case did not withstand judicial scrutiny, especially when the CBI sought to construct a narrative of conspiracy based on mere conjecture.
The CBI has been investigating alleged corruption in the formulation and execution of the now-scrapped excise policy of the erstwhile AAP government.
As news emerged of the clean chit in the case, which led to the downfall of the AAP government, Kejriwal broke down and said the corruption case against him was the "biggest political conspiracy" in the history of Independent India.
"The court has proven that Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, and AAP are 'Kattar Imaandar'," the three-time chief minister said.
While Kejriwal was in jail for six months in the case, Sisodia was behind bars for two years.
The investigating agency said it would immediately appeal in the Delhi High Court against the trial court judgment.
"Several aspects of the investigation have been either ignored or not adequately considered," a spokesperson said.
Rapping the CBI for lapses in the investigation, the judge said there was no cogent evidence against Kejriwal, and there was no prima facie case against Sisodia and the other accused. There was no "overarching conspiracy or criminal intent" in the excise policy, he said.
Emphasizing "some misleading averments," the judge said in his strongly worded ruling that the voluminous chargesheet had several loopholes not corroborated by evidence or witnesses.
"...The chargesheet suffers from internal contradictions, undermining the conspiracy theory," he said.
He said that in the absence of any evidence, the allegations against Kejriwal could not be sustained, and that the former chief minister was implicated without any evidence.
This, the judge said, was inconsistent with the rule of law.
Regarding Sisodia, the judge said there was no material on record showing his involvement, nor was any recovery made from him.
He also criticized the agency for building its case through statements from approvers.
"If such conduct is allowed, it would be a grave violation of Constitutional principles. The conduct where an accused is granted pardon and then made an approver, his statements used to fill the gaps in the investigation/narrative and make additional people accused is wrong," the court said.
The other accused acquitted 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 Chadra Reddy.