Opinion Express View: No bail for Manish Sisodia
Nearly year-long incarceration of former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister invites questions that need an answer
The Court had reminded the agency, then, of the stringent evidence-related requirements under PMLA and observed that the case would “fall flat in two hearings”. Yet, less than a month later, on October 30, the apex court denied bail to Sisodia. 
On February 26 last year, the CBI arrested then Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi, Manish Sisodia, in a case related to alleged irregularities in a now-scrapped liquor policy. Two weeks later, the ED formally charged the senior AAP leader under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Since then, on more than one occasion, the Supreme Court has told the two agencies that they cannot keep Sisodia “in jail indefinitely”. Yet in the past year, the judiciary has apparently stopped short of applying its impressive jurisprudence on civil liberties to Sisodia’s case. His bail applications have been rejected by lower courts, Delhi High Court, as well as the Supreme Court itself. On Thursday, a Delhi court extended the AAP leader’s judicial custody till March 12 and deferred, till March 2, a decision on whether it will take up Sisodia’s “regular bail application”. It cited a procedural complication: A review petition challenging the SC’s October 2023 decision to deny Sisodia bail is pending before the apex court.
The CBI is examining the criminal aspect of the liquor policy case and the ED is probing the money laundering dimension. Certainly, the two agencies must investigate all allegations of wrongdoing, and the law must take its course. However, the courts’ reluctance to apply the SC’s well-stated position that “bail is rule, and jail is exception” — underlined eloquently as late as 2018 in Dataram Singh vs State of Uttar Pradesh — to Sisodia’s case invites questions. This is especially so given that, during hearings, a two-judge bench had come down heavily on the investigating agencies for not producing enough evidence against the former Delhi Deputy CM. On October 6 last year, it asked the ED if it had any proof other than the statement of a co-accused-turned-approver. The Court had reminded the agency, then, of the stringent evidence-related requirements under PMLA and observed that the case would “fall flat in two hearings”. Yet, less than a month later, on October 30, the apex court denied bail to Sisodia.
On December 14, the SC dismissed the AAP leader’s petition to review its bail verdict. However, on February 5, the Court admitted a new curative petition filed by Sisodia. When it hears the case again, the SC must keep in mind its own powerful words in Gurbaksh Singh Sibbia vs the State of Punjab (1980): “The act of arrest directly affects freedom of movement of the person, and… an order of bail gives back to the accused that freedom on condition that he will appear to take his trial.”
Share
