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In a major relief for the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leadership, a Delhi court discharged all 23 accused in the ‘liquor gate’ case, including Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia, who had previously spent several days in judicial custody at Tihar Jail.

On Friday the 27th of February 2026, a Special Judge Jitendra Singh at the local Rouse Avenue Courts set free AAP leadership while castigating the CBI for lapses in the investigation.

Among the 21 people given a clean chit in the case includes Telangana Jagruthi president K Kavitha.

The CBI has been probing alleged corruption in the formulation and execution of the erstwhile AAP government’s now-scrapped excise policy.

Underscoring “some misleading averments”, the judge said in his strongly worded statement that the voluminous chargesheet had several lacunas not corroborated by evidence or witnesses.

“… The chargesheet suffers from internal contradictions, striking at the root of conspiracy theory,” he said.

The Special Judge said that in the absence of any evidence, the allegations against Kejriwal could not be sustained and that the former chief minister was implicated without any cogent evidence.

This, the judge Jitendra Singh said, was inconsistent with the rule of law.

Regarding Sisodia, the judge said there was no material on record showing his involvement, nor was any recovery made from him.

The court underlined its finding of the absence of an overarching conspiracy or criminal intent in the excise policy while observing that the federal agency’s case did not withstand judicial scrutiny, especially when the CBI sought to construct a narrative of conspiracy onmere conjecture.

It also rapped the agency 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 court said.

The other accused discharged are Kuldeep Singh, Narender Singh, Vijay Nair, Abhishek Boinpally, Arun Ramchandra Pillai, Mootha Goutam, Sameer Mahendru, Amandeep Singh Dhall, Arjun Pandey, Butchibabu Gornatla, Rakesh Joshi, Damodar Prasad Sharma, Prince Kumar, Chanpreet Singh Rayat, Arvind Kumar Singh, Durgesh Pathak, Amit Arora, Vinod Chauhan, Ashish Mathur, and P Sarath Chadra Reddy.