New Delhi, March 14 Former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and former Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Saturday furnished surety bonds of Rs 50,000 each before a court here following their discharge in the corruption case linked to the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders appeared before the Rouse Avenue Court and submitted the surety bonds in compliance with the order passed earlier while discharging them from the case investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
As per legal procedure, an accused who is discharged or acquitted in a criminal case is required to furnish a surety bond to ensure their presence before the court in case the prosecution files an appeal challenging the order.
In a detailed judgment running into more than 1,100 paragraphs, the Rouse Avenue Court, on February 27, had discharged all the accused, including Kejriwal and Sisodia, in connection with the alleged irregularities in the formulation and implementation of the excise policy introduced by the then AAP-led Delhi government.
Meanwhile, the discharge order has been challenged before the Delhi High Court by the CBI through a criminal revision petition. Earlier this week, a single-judge Bench of Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma issued notice to Kejriwal, Sisodia and other accused on the probe agency’s plea assailing the trial court’s order refusing to frame charges.
During the hearing, the Delhi High Court also stayed the trial court’s direction ordering departmental action against a CBI officer who had investigated the case and said the remarks made against the investigating agency and the officer would remain stayed.
The case pertains to alleged irregularities in the formulation and implementation of the excise policy introduced by the then AAP-led Delhi government, which the probe agency claimed was designed to benefit certain private liquor entities in exchange for alleged bribes.
However, the trial court had rejected the CBI’s theory of an overarching conspiracy, holding that the contemporaneous record indicated that the policy was the result of a consultative and deliberative process undertaken in accordance with prescribed procedure.
In a related development, Kejriwal has submitted a representation to Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya seeking transfer of the CBI’s revision petition from the Bench of Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma to another Bench of the Delhi High Court.
The representation urged the Chief Justice, who is the master of the roster, to reassign the matter to a different Bench.
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