High Court reserves judgment on Arvind Kejriwal's bail plea; CBI calls him 'mastermind' of excise scam

Delhi High Court (HC) on Monday (Jul 29) reserved its judgment on the bail plea filed by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in the liquor excise policy scam.The AamAadmi Party (AAP) leader, currently in judicial custody, had directly approached the HC, seeking bail without going to the trial court.

Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) argued against the bail saying "mere filing of chargesheet" did not give the Delhi CM, the right to bail. The premier agency called Kejriwal the 'sutradhar' (mastermind) of the scam, adding that without his arrest, "the investigation would not have been completed".

“There are no orders which have released him on bail. Those are just interim orders. First was for elections, and other is that it may be extended or can be reversed by the constitutional bench. Stay on bail in ED case still continues. It is an interim release dependent on another circumstance of the constitutional bench," argued CBI counsel DP Singh.

"The amount of evidence that has come in the last one month is of that nature…for lack of better words, he is the ‘sutradhaar’ (mastermind) of the entire excise scam," he added.

Kejriwal's counsel Abhishek Mau Singhvi, N Hariharan and Ramesh Gupta called CBI's allegations as poetic and said the excise policy was prepared by an expert committee, not the CM alone.

“Sutradhar is the word used. CBI is poetic. The first time excise policy went into making is 4-9-2020. There were nine expert committees for one year. These included four departments…After one year, in July 2021, for the first time, policy is published. At least 50 bureaucrats were involved,” Singhvi said.

What does the chargesheet say?

As per CBI's chargesheet, Kejriwal and his party received kickbacks of around Rs 90-100 crore ($10.7-11.9 million) through co-accused Vijay Nair,Abhishek Boinpally and Dinesh Arora to make changes to the excise policy 2021-22.

The chargesheet mentions a meeting between K Kavitha, TDP MP, liquor businessman Magunta Sreenivasulu Reddy and Kejriwal in 2021 at the CM's office in Delhi Secretariat.Reddy had reportedly requested Kejriwal to tweak the policy who assured full support to him.

The money was allegedly used in the 2022 Goa assembly elections where AAP attempted to contest against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its ruling government.

Further, the CBI alleged that a cartel was formed between the three stakeholders of the now-scrapped Excise Policy Case -- liquor manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers -- by violating provisions

(With inputs from agencies)