Delhi HC stays remarks against CBI in Kejriwal excise case

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Monday stayed the adverse observations made by a special CBI court against the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and its Investigating Officer in its judgement discharging all the 23 accused, including former Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal and former deputy CM Manish Sisodia in the Delhi excise policy case. The HC said that trial court's remarks against the IO are "foundationally misconceived."

Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma also directed the trial court to postpone the hearing in the money laundering case being pursued by Enforcement Directorate (ED) till the court decides CBI's revision plea against the trial court verdict. The high court issued notice to the accused asking them to file their replies to the CBI's plea.

In a related development, ED also filed a separate plea seeking expunging and deletion of certain "adverse, sweeping and unwarranted observations" against the agency made by the trial court last month. Appearing on behalf of CBI, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta contended that the excise policy case is one of the biggest scams in the nation's history. "This is one of the biggest scams in the history of the capital of this nation and in my opinion a national shame. Scientific investigation was carried out. Each and every aspect of conspiracy was established," Mehta argued.


In it's plea, which will come up for hearing next Monday, ED has argued that it was not a party to the said CBI proceedings in any capacity and was not afforded any opportunity to be heard before the said observations were recorded, "thereby flagrantly violating the fundamental principles of natural justice and judicial decorum". ED's plea, seen by ET, adds that adverse remarks passed by the trial court disclose a "...pre-determined approach wherein observations imbued with notes of finality, have been rendered with respect to the offence of money laundering being investigated by the ED , without the court either looking at the evidence gathered by ED or even hearing ED. The said remarks would cause grave prejudice to the case of ED under the PMLA". Calling the adverse remarks passed by the trial court "wholly unjustified", the agency has argued that the trial court "seeks to make a generalisation that ED files prosecution complaints to obviate the statutory consequence of default bail, without investigation in the scheduled offence having attained finality."