Delhi Liquor Policy Case: What the Court Order Means for Arvind Kejriwal

The Delhi liquor policy case involving Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has become one of the most discussed political controversies in India. A recent court order in the Delhi excise policy case has brought fresh attention to the investigation.

Read Also: What is the Delhi Liquor Policy Case ? Why ED and CBI arrested Arvind Kejriwal ?

Trial Court Decision: A Major Turning Point — February 27, 2026

In what proved to be the most consequential development in the entire Delhi excise policy case timeline, the Rouse Avenue Special Court delivered a bombshell verdict on February 27, 2026 — exactly three years after Manish Sisodia’s initial arrest.

All 23 Accused Discharged
Special Judge Devendra Kumar Singh discharged all 23 accused — including Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, K. Kavitha, Vijay Nair, and 19 others — from the corruption case. The court held that there was no independent evidence linking the accused to the alleged conspiracy.

Court’s Devastating Assessment of CBI’s Case
The court’s language was unusually sharp. It declared that the CBI’s chargesheet rested “largely on surmises, conjectures, and inferential leaps unsupported by cogent material.” It stated that the material put on record did not disclose even a prima facie case, let alone grave suspicion, and that the excise policy case “stood discredited in its entirety.”

On Kejriwal specifically, the court found that his implication rested primarily on a single line in the statement of a prosecution witness, which was corroborated only by the statement of that witness’s son — an approver in the case. The court raised fundamental questions about whether one approver’s statement can be treated as corroborated by a closely related witness.

The court also found that neither Sisodia nor Kejriwal were shown to have been present at any conspiratorial meetings or linked to illegal gratification by the evidence presented.

Surety Bonds Furnished
Following the discharge, Kejriwal and Sisodia furnished surety bonds of Rs 50,000 each before the Rouse Avenue Court — a standard legal requirement ensuring the accused remain available if the prosecution files a higher court appeal.

CBI Challenges the Discharge in Delhi High Court

The CBI did not accept the trial court’s verdict quietly. Within days of the February 27 discharge order, the agency filed a criminal revision petition before the Delhi High Court, challenging the discharge and seeking reinstatement of the case against the accused.

High Court Issues Notice — March 9, 2026

On March 9, 2026, Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma of the Delhi High Court took up the CBI petition. She issued notice to all 23 accused, including Kejriwal and Sisodia, requiring them to file replies to the CBI’s plea.

Importantly, Justice Sharma stated that certain observations and findings of the trial court, made at the charge-framing stage, appeared “prima facie erroneous and in need of consideration.” She also stayed the trial court’s adverse directions against the CBI’s investigating officer.

HC Defers ED Trial Proceedings

In the same March 9 order, the High Court directed that proceedings in the connected Enforcement Directorate money laundering case before the trial court should be deferred until the High Court decides the CBI revision petition. This effectively put the ED case on hold as well.

Kejriwal Seeks Transfer of Case from Justice Sharma

Following the March 9 High Court proceedings, Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia raised a significant procedural concern. On March 11, 2026, Kejriwal wrote directly to the Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court seeking the transfer of the CBI petition from Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma to another, “impartial” judge.

Grounds for the Transfer Request

Kejriwal’s representation stated that he had a “grave, bona fide, and reasonable apprehension” that the hearing before Justice Sharma would not be impartial and neutral. His specific grounds included:

• On the very first hearing of the CBI petition, Justice Sharma recorded a prima facie finding that the trial court’s order was “erroneous” — without even hearing the accused side.
• Justice Sharma had previously heard multiple cases arising from the CBI FIR — including Kejriwal’s own arrest challenge and bail applications of Sisodia, Sanjay Singh, and K. Kavitha — and had not granted relief in any of them.
• Of the judgments passed by Justice Sharma in related matters, three had been set aside by the Supreme Court and one had been referred to a larger bench.
• Justice Sharma had directed deferral of the ED trial even though the ED was not a party before the High Court — an extraordinary step taken without hearing the accused.

Kejriwal clarified that his request was “not directed at any personal predilection, but at the objective test of reasonable apprehension in the mind of a fair-minded and informed litigant seeking justice.”

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Delhi High Court Chief Justice Rejects the Transfer Request — March 15, 2026

On March 15, 2026 — the very day of publication of this article — the Delhi High Court Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya officially rejected Arvind Kejriwal’s representation seeking transfer of the case.

Chief Justice’s Reasoning
A communication from the High Court’s Registrar General conveyed Chief Justice Upadhyaya’s decision in clear terms. The Chief Justice stated: “The petition is assigned to the Hon’ble judge as per the current roster. Any call of recusal has to be taken by the Hon’ble judge. I, however, do not find any reason to transfer the petition by passing an order on the administrative side.”

What This Means Going Forward
The Chief Justice’s refusal means two things: first, the CBI challenge to Kejriwal’s discharge remains assigned to Justice Sharma; second, if Kejriwal and Sisodia continue to believe the bench is unsuitable, the only formal recourse is to directly request the judge to recuse herself — a call that, as the Chief Justice noted, “has to be taken by the judge concerned.”

The CBI petition is now listed before Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma for the next hearing, where both sides will argue the merits of whether the trial court’s discharge order should stand.

The Electoral Consequence: AAP Loses Delhi — February 2025

While courts continued to process legal challenges, the political fallout from the excise policy controversy Delhi was severe and definitive. The Delhi Assembly elections of February 2025 delivered a stunning verdict.

BJP Returns to Power After 27 Years
In elections held on February 5, 2025, the Bharatiya Janata Party secured 48 of Delhi’s 70 assembly seats — its best performance in Delhi since 1993 — ending AAP’s decade-long dominance of the national capital. The BJP’s vote share stood at 46.67 per cent, compared to AAP’s 43.32 per cent. Congress, meanwhile, drew a complete blank, failing to win even a single seat.

Kejriwal and Sisodia Both Lose Their Seats
In a humbling personal defeat, Arvind Kejriwal lost the high-profile New Delhi constituency to BJP’s Parvesh Verma by a margin of 4,089 votes. It was the first time Kejriwal had lost an assembly election from the seat since 2013. Manish Sisodia similarly lost the Jangpura constituency to BJP’s Tarvinder Singh Marwah by approximately 675 votes.

What Happens Next: The Road Ahead

The Delhi liquor policy case is not over. Multiple legal threads remain unresolved, and the coming months will be critical. Here is what to watch:

High Court Decides the Discharge Challenge
The most immediate question is whether the Delhi High Court — specifically Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma’s bench — upholds or reverses the Rouse Avenue Court’s discharge order. If reversed, all 23 accused including Kejriwal and Sisodia would have to face criminal trial. The CBI has argued that the trial court’s observations were erroneous and that crucial aspects of the investigation were ignored or inadequately considered.

ED Case Also on Hold
The parallel Enforcement Directorate money laundering case is currently deferred by order of Justice Sharma pending the CBI revision petition outcome. Once the High Court rules, the ED proceedings may resume. ED had also filed separate complaints regarding summons compliance — those matters are also being processed in courts.

Possibility of Supreme Court Intervention
Given that several earlier rulings in this case were set aside by the Supreme Court — including bail orders — there is a reasonable possibility that either the prosecution or the accused may escalate to the Supreme Court depending on how the High Court rules. The Supreme Court has historically played an active supervisory role in this case.

What is the Future of AAP’s Future ?

The party that swept 67 of 70 Delhi seats in 2015 and 62 in 2020 now holds only 22 seats in opposition. The resolution — or continuation — of the liquor policy case will be central to AAP’s efforts to re-establish itself as a credible political force in Delhi and beyond.