New Delhi, May 19 (H.S.): A new bench of the Delhi High Court on Tuesday directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to inform Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia and Durgesh Pathak that the bench hearing the Delhi excise policy case has been changed.

Justice Manoj Jain instructed the CBI to formally notify the three accused about the transfer of the matter. The next hearing in the case has been scheduled for May 25.

During the hearing, the court observed that no one appeared on behalf of Kejriwal, Sisodia or Durgesh Pathak. The court remarked that since the matter has been widely reported in the media, it could be presumed that the three accused were aware that the case had been transferred from the bench of Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma to the bench of Justice Manoj Jain.

The court further observed that once Kejriwal appears before the court, it would become clear whether he is satisfied with the present bench or not.

Appearing for the CBI, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta informed the court that an affidavit had already been filed confirming that notices had been duly served upon all three accused. He added that the three respondents had earlier appeared before the court and had also filed applications in the matter.

The court then remarked that it understood that the accused were already aware of the development.

Earlier, the matter was listed before the bench of Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma. Kejriwal had filed an application seeking Justice Sharma’s recusal from hearing the case. Justice Sharma had rejected the plea seeking her withdrawal from the matter.

Subsequently, while initiating contempt proceedings against six Aam Aadmi Party leaders, Justice Sharma referred the matter to another bench for further hearing.

Thereafter, the case was listed before the bench of Justice Manoj Jain, while the contempt proceedings were assigned to the bench of Justice Navin Chawla.

On February 27, the Rouse Avenue Court had ordered the acquittal of all the accused in the case. The trial court had observed that there were significant contradictions in the chargesheet.

The Rouse Avenue Court had stated that the facts presented in the thousands of pages of the chargesheet did not correspond with the statements of witnesses.

The court had also noted that Manish Sisodia remained in jail for nearly 530 days in connection with the case, while Arvind Kejriwal spent 156 days in custody across two separate periods.

Kejriwal was released on September 13, 2024, after the Supreme Court granted him bail in the CBI case.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar