Arise Bharat

Author: Col Ajay Kumar ( retd )

The recent discharge of former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia by the Rouse Avenue Court marks a watershed moment in the intersection of Indian political accountability and criminal jurisprudence. While the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has hailed the February 2026 ruling as a “definitive vindication of honesty,” a cold, clinical analysis of the 598-page order suggests that this judicial outcome is less a declaration of absolute innocence and more a stinging indictment of the deep-seated rot within our premier investigative agencies and the structural lethargy of our justice system.

From Suspicion To Conjecture

Special Judge Jitender Singh not only dismissed the case but also dismantled the bedrock of the Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI) investigation. The court’s observation that the agency built a narrative on “conjecture rather than concrete evidence” speaks to a perennial crisis: the divide between investigative suspicion and judicial evidence. The CBI’s central point was an allegation of a “South Group” of liquor barons who are alleged to have orchestrated a ₹100 crore kickback scheme. But the court said these “South Group” claims had been mostly hearsay and that the designation “was arbitrary and unwarranted.” All the while submitting thousands of pages of charge sheets, the agency did not present any material that would support its witness statements. The judge even referred to “misleading averments” and seemed to argue that the bulk of the paper was what was being used to make up for a lack of quality evidence. But one of the more damning components of the investigation was the dependence on “approvers”. The court scolded the CBI for using such statements to “fill gaps” in the money trail without outside corroboration. This was described as a “grave violation of Constitutional principles,” reflecting the extent to which agencies prefer a political script to forensic robustness. Ultimately, the court found that Kejriwal had been implicated without “cogent material” and had no “criminal intent” in Sisodia’s policy-making actions.

The Crisis of Credibility in the CBI and ED

The collapse of the liquor policy case against the AAP leadership at the discharge stage highlights a deeper institutional crisis. The Supreme Court has expressed profound concern over the “poor conviction rates” of the Enforcement Directorate (ED), noting that out of 5,000 cases, fewer than 10 resulted in convictions by 2025. This statistical anomaly suggests a system where the process of investigation and pre-trial incarceration has become the punishment itself.

The “Caged Parrot” and the Predicate Offence Trap

The CBI continues to labour under the “caged parrot” label, first coined by the Supreme Court in the context of political interference in coal block allocation cases. Structurally, the CBI is constrained by the Delhi Special Police Establishment (DSPE) Act, which requires state consent for investigations—a requirement frequently used as a shield by opposition-ruled states. In the liquor case, a major legal dilemma arose regarding the “predicate offence.” Under Indian law, a money laundering case by the ED typically requires a successful prosecution of a primary corruption case (the predicate offence) by an agency like the CBI. If the trial court finds no prima facie evidence of corruption and discharges the accused in the CBI case, the very foundation of the ED’s case becomes unstable. This legal linkage explains why agencies often struggle to sustain high-profile prosecutions when their initial narratives are built on “conjecture” rather than documentary proof.

 Higher Court Reversal Trap.

History shows that relief from trial courts is often only a temporary reprieve. In India, high-profile acquittals at the lower level are frequently challenged—and sometimes overturned—by appellate courts. This recurring pattern reflects the so-called “caged parrot” syndrome, where investigative agencies, seen as extensions of the executive, produce flawed probes in which crime scenes are mishandled or financial trails poorly secured. Yet, these defects are occasionally corrected on appeal. A glance at India’s most sensational criminal trials reveals this tendency clearly.

The Manu Sharma case remains the most cited example. Accused of shooting Jessica Lal in 1999, Sharma was acquitted by a trial court in 2006 despite multiple witnesses. The Delhi High Court, amid intense public scrutiny, fast-tracked the appeal and overturned the acquittal.

In the Priyadarshini Mattoo case, Santosh Kumar Singh was acquitted in 1999 on “benefit of doubt,” with the court faulting a botched CBI investigation that even involved fabricated DNA evidence. In 2006, the Delhi High Court reversed the verdict, calling the trial court’s reasoning “amazingly perverse.”

The 1984 anti-Sikh riots prosecutions followed a similar arc. Sajjan Kumar was acquitted in 2013, only for the Delhi High Court in 2018 to convict him, citing institutional collusion and manipulation of witness testimonies.

Likewise, Navjot Singh Sidhu was acquitted in a 1988 road rage case, convicted by the Punjab and Haryana High Court in 2006, partially relieved by the Supreme Court in 2018, and ultimately sentenced to one year in 2022 after review—demonstrating that a trial court’s dismissal is rarely the final word.

The 2G Scam and the Precedent of Systemic Inefficiency

The 2017 acquittal of all accused in the 2G spectrum case by a special court remains the definitive modern example of investigative failure. Despite the Supreme Court quashing 122 licenses in 2012 due to “arbitrariness,” the criminal case brought by the CBI and ED failed to result in a single conviction. The trial judge famously observed that the case was built on a narrative that “artfully arranged a few selected facts” and exaggerated them beyond recognition. The appeal against the 2G acquittal has been pending in the Delhi High Court for over eight years, with more than 140 hearings and 17 different judges involved. The “snail’s pace” of this appeal highlights a critical dysfunction in the justice system: by the time an acquittal is reviewed, the evidence has aged, memories have faded, and the political context has shifted entirely. The fact that it took 126 hearings just to “grant leave to appeal” in the 2G case is a sombre reflection of the “inefficiency of our justice system”.

Benefit of Doubt vs. Moral Certainty

Kejriwal’s discharge is the idea that an acquittal is proof of “inefficiency” rather than “innocence.” In Indian criminal jurisprudence, there is a distinct difference between an “honourable acquittal” and one granted because the prosecution “failed to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt”. An honourable acquittal occurs when the court factually vindicates the accused, whereas a “benefit of doubt” acquittal implies that while the accused may have committed the act, the state was too incompetent to prove it.

In the Aarushi Talwar case, the Allahabad High Court’s acquittal was an indictment of the “botched up” probe, stating that the dentists were entitled to the “benefit of doubt”. This did not solve the mystery of the murder but merely highlighted that the CBI had prosecuted the wrong people or handled the right evidence so poorly that a conviction was impossible. Similarly, the discharge of Kejriwal and Sisodia is a “redemption” in the political sense, but in the legal sense, it is an indictment of the CBI’s failure to cross the “threshold of charge”.

The Sociopolitical Impact of Reversed Acquittals

When high-profile figures like Jayalalithaa are convicted, then acquitted, and then have their convictions restored by the Supreme Court, it creates a sense of “judicial see-saw” that erodes public trust. Jayalalithaa’s disproportionate assets case lasted 18 years, during which she was disqualified, reinstated, and disqualified again. This timeline reveals how “elected representatives cannot be given the benefit of doubt” easily, yet the system allows for prolonged periods of power despite ongoing corruption trials. The Lily Thomas vs. Union of India judgment in 2013 sought to address this by ruling that MPs and MLAs convicted of crimes with a sentence of two years or more would be immediately disqualified. However, the ability of high-profile accused to secure acquittals at the trial level—only to have them challenged for years in higher courts—remains a major loophole. The case of Shibu Soren, who was convicted of murder by a trial court only to be acquitted by the High Court because the CBI “failed miserably” to identify the victim’s body, illustrates this instability.

The Need for Professionalism over Proximity

The 2026 discharge order by Special Judge Jitender Singh recommended a departmental inquiry against the CBI officials involved in the liquor case. This recommendation is a rare but necessary step toward institutional accountability. If investigative agencies are to regain their status as “trusted” entities, they must shed the “hasty approach” of securing arrests for political optics and return to the meticulous standards of forensic science and documentary proof.

Conclusion

Arvind Kejriwal’s discharge from the liquor policy case has more to do with an indictment of institutional decay than with vindication. When investigations fail to turn suspicion into admissible proof, when narratives are driven by speculation and guileful approver activity, not forensic and documentary rigour; when agencies look politically animated but legally underprepared, acquittals become symptoms of investigative atrophy rather than declarations of innocence. The recurring pattern—from reversals in cases like Manu Sharma, Santosh Kumar Singh, and Sajjan Kumar—are a reminder that trial court relief is frequently temporary instead of absolution. Until the nation’s premier agencies abandon spectacle in favor of substance and restore credibility in terms of professionalism over proximity to power, “Satyamev Jayate” will continue to be a constitutional promise buckled by systemic incompetence.

Also Read : Civil Society movements and the Forces Behind AAP’s Rise