The Delhi High Court on Monday stayed the adverse remarks made by a trial court against the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and its investigating officer in the Delhi excise policy case.

The trial court had earlier discharged all 23 accused in the case, including Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia of the Aam Aadmi Party.

The bench of Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma directed the trial court to postpone the hearing in the money laundering case related to the matter until the High Court decides the CBI’s revision plea challenging the discharge order.

The Court also issued notice to the accused persons and asked them to file their responses to the plea filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed a revision petition challenging the trial court’s February 27 order.

Appearing for the agency, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the Delhi High Court that, for the time being, the CBI is not seeking a stay on the discharge of the accused. He only requested that the trial court’s verdict should not impact the money laundering case being separately investigated by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

He further told the Delhi High Court that the alleged excise policy scam is one of the biggest scams in the country’s history.

Earlier, a Special Court discharged all 23 accused in the case on February 27.

Special Judge Jitendra Singh held that the prosecution’s case did not stand up to judicial scrutiny and that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had attempted to build a conspiracy narrative based largely on conjecture. The court therefore ruled that the case did not warrant a trial.

The case dates back to 2022, when the CBI registered an FIR alleging irregularities in the Delhi Excise Policy for 2021–22. According to the agency, the policy was manipulated to allow monopolisation and cartelisation in the liquor trade in Delhi.

The CBI initiated the probe based on a complaint filed by Delhi Lieutenant Governor V. K. Saxena on July 20, 2022. The agency alleged that leaders of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) received kickbacks from liquor manufacturers due to manipulation of the policy. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) later registered a separate case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

Several opposition leaders were subsequently arrested in connection with the case, with critics alleging that the action was politically motivated.

Investigators claimed that a criminal conspiracy was hatched during the formulation of the policy by AAP leaders, including Manish Sisodia and Arvind Kejriwal, along with other unidentified individuals and entities. According to the allegations, certain loopholes were deliberately left in the policy to benefit specific liquor licensees after the tender process.

Based on these allegations, the CBI filed a chargesheet against 23 accused.

Several political leaders spent months in jail as both the trial court and the Delhi High Court initially denied them bail. Relief eventually came from the Supreme Court of India.

However, while discharging the accused, the trial court also criticised the CBI for relying heavily on statements made by approvers.The judge observed that allowing investigators to grant pardon to an accused, convert them into an approver, and then use their statements to fill gaps in the investigation would violate constitutional principles.

Challenging the order, the CBI filed a revision petition before the Delhi High Court, calling the February 27 decision “patently illegal” and “perverse,” and arguing that it contained errors on the face of the record.The agency contended that the trial judge had effectively conducted a “mini-trial” while deciding the discharge plea and assessed different parts of the alleged conspiracy separately instead of examining the case as a whole.

According to the CBI, the court selectively read the prosecution’s case while ignoring material that pointed to the accused’s involvement.

The agency also objected to the trial court’s direction for departmental action against the investigating officer, describing the observation as “shocking to say the least.”

During Monday’s hearing, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta argued that the discharge order was effectively equivalent to an acquittal without a trial.

“This is an order of acquittal without trial. It is as bad as that,” he told the High Court.

He further argued that the trial court had wrongly insisted on corroboration of approver statements at the stage before trial, which he said was contrary to established criminal law principles.

The Solicitor General also questioned the court’s findings regarding the alleged role of Sisodia, asking whether investigators now had to prove that an accused personally handled bribe money in order to establish the offence.