After being discharged by the Rouse Avenue Court in the Delhi Excise Policy case, former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal received a warm welcome from his family as he returned home. He was greeted with hugs from his loved ones, accompanied by Manish Sisodia. The Rouse Avenue Court cleared both Arvind Kejriwal and former Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia in connection with the Delhi Excise Policy case. The court stated that the alleged central role in a criminal conspiracy could not be proven.

It observed that the accusations did not stand up to judicial scrutiny and found no evidence of criminal intent on the part of Manish Sisodia. The court further remarked that the conspiracy theory could not be sustained against a constitutional authority. The CBI had filed its initial chargesheet in 2022, followed by several supplementary ones. The agency alleged that Rs 100 crore was paid by a “south lobby” to influence the now-withdrawn excise policy in its favour.

Altogether, 23 individuals were named in the chargesheets, including Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, K Kavitha, 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 Chandra Reddy.

During the hearings, the CBI argued that the alleged criminal conspiracy should be considered in its entirety and that the adequacy of evidence ought to be examined during trial. Represented by Additional Solicitor General D P Singh and advocate Manu Mishra, the agency maintained that there was sufficient material to frame charges against all those accused.