Excise scam: Delhi court discharges former CM Kejriwal, Sisodia, K Kavitha and 20 others
New Delhi (PTI): In a massive relief to the AAP's top leadership, a Delhi court on Friday discharged former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, his ex-deputy Manish Sisodia and 21 others in the politically charged liquor policy case by refusing to take cognisance of the CBI chargesheet against them.
Among the 21 people given a clean chit in the case is Telangana Jagruthi president K Kavitha.
Special Judge Jitendra Singh rapped the CBI for lapses in the investigation, saying that there was no cogent evidence against Kejriwal and there was no prima facie case against Sisodia and the other accused.
The CBI has been probing alleged corruption in the formulation and execution of the erstwhile AAP government's now-scrapped excise policy.
ALSO READ: Delhi court discharges Kejriwal, Sisodia in excise corruption case, rejects CBI chargesheet
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.
He 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 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.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Karnataka PUC II exams from Feb 28; over 7.1 lakh students to appear
Bengaluru: The Karnataka School Examination and Assessment Board (KSEAB) will commence the Pre-University Course (PUC) II examinations from February 28. The first exams will be Kannada and Arabic papers.
The Class 12 examinations will continue till March 17. These exams will be conducted at 1,217 centres across the state. A total of 7,10,363 students from 5,174 PU colleges have registered for the examinations this year and of them, 2,92,645 students are from the science stream, 2,11,174 from commerce and 1,42,982 from arts.
The board has reduced the minimum qualifying marks for PU II from 35 per cent to 30 per cent, as reported by The Indian Express. Authorities reaffirmed that strict guidelines to ensure smooth conduct of the examinations amid concerns over fake question papers being circulated on social media. KSEAB president Prakash Nittali said the question paper currently circulating online is fake and added that a complaint will be lodged with the cyber police.
The School Education and Literacy Department has announced that social media platforms will be closely monitored during both the PU and SSLC examinations to prevent misinformation and malpractice.
To facilitate students, the state government has arranged free bus travel in KSRTC and BMTC buses for those appearing for Class 10 and Class 12 examinations upon production of hall tickets. Similar arrangements will be made in private buses operating in the coastal and Malnad regions.
The Karnataka SSLC examinations are scheduled to begin on March 18 starting with the first language paper. A total of 9,02,889 students are expected to appear for the SSLC exams this year, with 8,12,855 fresh candidates, 62,845 repeaters and 27,189 private candidates.
