Published Feb 27, 2026 | 12:32 PM ⚊ Updated Feb 27, 2026 | 12:33 PM
K Kavitha, Arvind Kejriwal.
Synopsis: A Delhi court discharged former Delhi chief minister and Aam Aadmi Party supremo Arvind Kejriwal, AAP leader Manish Sisodia, former Telangana MLC K Kavitha and others in the corruption case related to the alleged liquor policy scam.
The Rouse Avenue Court in Delhi on Friday, 27 February, discharged former Delhi chief minister and Aam Aadmi Party supremo Arvind Kejriwal, AAP leader Manish Sisodia, former Telangana MLC K Kavitha and others in the corruption case related to the alleged liquor policy scam.
Special Judge Jitendra Singh discharged all 23 accused persons in the matter. Discharging the accused, the court rapped the CBI for lapses in investigation and said that the “voluminous chargesheet” has many lacunae not supported by any witness or statement.
“There was no overarching conspiracy or criminal intent in the excise policy,” the court ruled.
The court also slammed the usage of the term “South Group” in the charge sheet.
The court said that the CBI failed to make out a prima facie case against Sisodia. The Judge added that Kejriwal was implicated without any cogent material.
While pronouncing the verdict, the court said that the CBI chargesheet running into thousands of pages included material which did not support any of the witness statements. The judge also said there were “misleading averments” in the chargesheet.
The Court also pulled up the CBI for building its case through approver statements.
“If such conduct is allowed, it would be a grave violation of the 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 judge said.
The other accused in the case were are Kuldeep Singh, Narender Singh, Vijay Nair, Abhishek Boinpally, Arun Pillai, Mootha Gautam, Sameer Mahendru, Amandeep Singh Dhall, Arjun Pandey, Butchibabu Gorantla, Rajesh Joshi, Damodar Prasad Sharma, Prince Kumar, Arvind Kumar Singh, Chanpreet Singh, Durgesh Pathak, Amit Arora, Vinod Chauhan, Ashish Chand Mathur and Sarath Reddy.
The court said the charge sheet had lacunae not supported by any witnesses or evidence.
While discharging the primary accused, Kuldeep Singh, the court said it was surprising why he was implicated when there was nothing against him.
On Sisodia, who was accused of being responsible for the formulation and implementation of the liquor policy, the court said that there was no evidence showing his involvement, and neither was there any recovery.
The Court said that the chargesheet suffered from internal contradictions which strike at the very root of the alleged conspiracy theory.
Regarding Kejriwal, the judge concluded that he was implicated without any cogent material, a position which is inconsistent with the rule of law, especially when it concerns a person who holds a constitutional post.
The judge said that in the absence of fundamental material without any statement or evidence, the attribution of Kejriwal in the alleged conspiracy cannot be sustained.
According to the CBI and the ED, irregularities were committed while modifying the Delhi Excise Policy 2021-22, and undue favours were extended to license holders.
The Delhi government implemented the excise policy on 17 November 2021, but scrapped it at the end of September 2022 amid allegations of corruption.
Earlier, on 11 August 2023, the Delhi High Court granted bail to Raghava Reddy. Raghava Reddy was arrested by the ED on 10 February 2023, following a questioning session at the ED office in New Delhi.
Raghava was arrested based on information provided by two other people — businessman Gautam Malhotra from Punjab, and Rajesh Joshi, an aide of former AAP communication head Vijay Nair. Both Malhotra and Joshi were arrested by the ED earlier.
Raghava was picked up within a few days after the arrest of the former Chartered Accountant of Kavitha, Butchibabu Gorantla, by the CBI in the scam.
In its first prosecution complaint filed in the court, the ED said that Vijay Nair, on behalf of leaders of the AAP, received kickbacks to the tune of ₹100 crore from the so-called South Group, as termed in the statements of various persons recorded during the investigation.
Nair, who was A5 in the FIR issued by the CBI in the case, was in charge of communication and media for AAP.
According to the CBI, the prominent names in the South Group include Magunta Srinuvasulu Reddy, his son Raghava, and Kavitha, the daughter of former Telangana chief minister and BRS chief K Chandrashekar Rao.
Businessman Arun Ramachandran Pillai was arrested by the ED under the claim that he was among the three key representatives of Kavitha.
Apart from Pillai, two other representatives of Kavitha were said to be beauty salon chain owner Abhishek Boinpally and Gorantla Butchibabu.
The investigation agency also said that kickbacks were paid in advance to AAP leaders through Vijay Nair by the South Group, as part of an agreement between them.
As against kickbacks that were paid, the South Group secured uninhibited access and undue favours, and attained stakes in established wholesale businesses and multiple retail zones, over and above what was allowed in the policy, said the CBI charge sheet.
To recover the kickbacks, the partners of the South Group were given a 65 percent stake in Indo-Spirits in collusion with Sameer Mahendru, the owner of the firm.
This partnership formation was directed by Nair on the assurance of giving the wholesale business of Pernod Richard to Indo-Spirits.
The South Group controlled Indo-Spirits’ stakes through false representation, concealment and proxies, the investigation agency said.
