Delhi Excise case: Court reserves order on framing charges vs Kejriwal

Delhi's Rouse Avenue court reserved its order on framing charges in the Excise policy case against Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, and others. The CBI argued for sufficient evidence, while Kejriwal's counsel cited a lack of incriminating material.

The Rouse Avenue court reserved its order on framing of charges in the Delhi Excise policy corruption case on Thursday. The court reserved its order after hearing the CBI and the accused persons, which included Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, and 21 others. Special Judge Jitendra Singh reserved the order after framing of charges after hearing the rebuttal arguements by ASG D P Singh for the CBI. The court is likely to pronounce the order on February 27.

The CBI first filed a charge sheet in 2022 and subsequently filed supplementary charge sheets. It is alleged that Rs 100 crore was paid by the south lobby to influence the proposed Delhi Excise policy in their favour.

List of Accused in Chargesheet

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, P Sarath Chadra Reddy.

Arguments on Framing of Charges

CBI's Position

The CBI submitted that the offence of Conspiracy has to be seen in its entirety. The evidentiary value is to be tested at 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.

Defence Arguments for Arvind Kejriwal

Senior advocate N Hariharan had argued that there is no material to frame charges against Arvind Kejriwal.

On January 17, Senior counsel N Hariharan submitted to Former CM Arvind Kejriwal that there is nothing incriminating against him and that the charge sheet against him is a cut-and-paste job of ofthe 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 evidence linking him to any request that anyone take money from the south lobby.

Kejriwal was not named in the first charge sheet or 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 the same as that of the previous charge sheets. It is a cut-and-paste of allegations against Kejriwal.

During the arguments, senior counsel had also addressed the issue of Permission for further investigation. Further, the evidence should be sufficient to establish the Accused's guilt, with the permission of the court, senior counsel N Hariharan submitted.

It was added that the 4th charge sheet is nothing more than repackaging, with the intent to implicate a person who was performing his official duty.

The court asked the senior counsel to elaborate on Magunta's statement, 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 designated an approver, having previously been an accused. The senior advocate submitted that no link exists showing that Kejriwal asked anyone to take money from the south lobby. (ANI)

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