A Delhi court on Friday discharged all 23 accused in the CBI’s excise policy case, including former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, both senior leaders of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
The order was passed by Special Judge Jitendra Singh, who observed that there was no material on record to substantiate the prosecution’s allegations against the accused. The court also declined to take cognisance of the chargesheet filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the corruption case linked to the now-scrapped excise policy.
Kejriwal and Sisodia were arrested during the CBI’s probe into alleged irregularities in the formulation and implementation of the erstwhile AAP government’s excise policy. At the time of their arrests, they were serving as Delhi’s chief minister and deputy chief minister, respectively.
Earlier in January, a Delhi court had also acquitted Kejriwal in two separate cases filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which had accused him of skipping summonses issued during its investigation into the same excise policy matter.
