In the 598-page order passed by Special Judge Jitendra Singh on Friday, discharging AAP leader and former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, his deputy Manish Sisodia and 21 others booked for alleged corruption in the Delhi excise policy case, the name of city-based restaurateur Dinesh Arora, an accused who had turned approver in the case, crops up 31 times.
Maintaining that Arora’s statements were treated as an “unimpeachable truth” by the CBI, the court said that such a practice carried the “grave potential of setting an unhealthy precedent”. It added that this normalises the method by which the probe agency continues to “re-record statements of the approver” to “fill gaps, improve the prosecution narrative, implicate additional accused, or artificially weave missing links…”
To strengthen its case before the trial court, the CBI majorly had relied upon Arora’s seven statements.
The CBI had claimed that the ‘South Group’ – accused persons from South India – paid Rs 100 crore in “advance kickbacks” to AAP leaders to get the excise policy tweaked in their favor. This money, the agency alleged, was used by the party to fund its 2022 Assembly election campaigns in Goa and Punjab. Arora was accused of being a “conduit for kickbacks” between the ‘South Group’ and the AAP.
The agency had also alleged that Arora was a close associate of Sisodia and was involved at “every stage in the making of the excise policy”.
The CBI had arrested Arora in 2022 in connection with the corruption case. In November 2022, he turned approver in the case and was granted bail. Next July, he was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in relation to the money laundering case linked to the alleged scam. In October 2023, a court in Delhi allowed Arora to become an approver in the money laundering case as well and granted him pardon.
What did court say about Arora?
In Friday’s order, the court termed Arora as the “prosecution’s approver whose seven statements are relied upon and who claims knowledge from the stage of policy formulation to the alleged utilisation of funds”.
Story continues below this ad
“The statements have been elevated and treated as though they constitute unimpeachable truth, and have been uncritically incorporated as relied-upon material forming the backbone of the prosecution case,” it said.
“This court notes that it is for the first time that it has come across a chargesheet in which as many as seven statements of an approver have been recorded. No decision of any higher court has been placed before this court to show that such a course has been adopted or approved in any other case,” it added.
The court said such a practice carried the “grave potential of setting an unhealthy precedent”, which could effectively normalise a “method whereby an investigating agency, after securing pardon on the professed premise of a full and true disclosure, continues to repeatedly re-record statements of the approver over an extended period, ostensibly to fill gaps, improve the prosecution narrative, implicate additional accused, or artificially weave missing links in the chain of circumstances”.
The Special Judge also said that Arora’s statements were recorded over one-and-a-half years until the filing of the last supplementary chargesheet. For this, it said, the investigating officer (IO) had offered “no explanation whatsoever”.
Story continues below this ad
“This unexplained conduct reflects a disturbing departure from the settled legal principles governing the grant of pardon,” the Judge said, adding that this gave rise to “a legitimate apprehension that the approver’s subsequent statements are not the product of spontaneous disclosure, but of a prolonged and iterative process calibrated to suit the evolving requirements of the prosecution”.
The court pulled up the CBI for repeatedly examining Arora and re-recording his statements. This, it said, demonstrated that rather than a complete disclosure, the statements “gradually devolved into a series of incomplete and evolving versions”. The court further called the statements of the approver “shifting”.
Referring to one of Arora’s statement taken on October 17, 2023, where he had mentioned about the delivery of Rs 1 crore, which was handed over to Sarvesh Mishra – an accused in the money laundering case who was allegedly acting on behalf of AAP MP Sanjay Singh – the court noted that the approver came up with this allegation in the course of his “later statements” after being examined for over a year.
What did Arora’s statements convey?
Arora was projected by the CBI as a key conspirator who was allegedly involved in the facilitation and execution of the alleged offence. The selection of Arora as the approver was “vulnerable to serious scrutiny”, the court said.
Story continues below this ad
In a statement, Arora had said that he was part of a meeting that took place in mid-2021 near Claridges Hotel in Delhi, where the liquor policy was discussed and it was decided that about 10 retail zones in Delhi would be taken by the “South Group”.
In another meeting held around the same time at ITC Kohenoor in Hyderabad, Rs 20-30 crore were allegedly to be given to two accused. This transfer was to be allegedly coordinated by Arora.
In another statement, Arora had said that “cash amount constituting the alleged ‘upfront money’ reached Delhi through hawala channels”.
As per the CBI, another accused paid a bribe of Rs 30 lakh as illegal gratification to another accused for expediting a license. This was allegedly done with Arora’s involvement.
