The recent Delhi trial court verdict acquitting 23 accused — including former Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, his deputy Manish Sisodia, and BRS MLC K. Kavitha — in the controversial excise policy case is not just a legal development. It is a political earthquake. And it comes at a time when the country is preparing for crucial electoral battles.
Let us be clear: a court of law has spoken. In India’s constitutional scheme, that must be respected. But respect does not mean silence. Nor does it prohibit scrutiny — especially when the verdict has far-reaching implications for public trust in institutions, from investigative agencies to the higher judiciary itself.
The Collapse of a “Premier” Case
For nearly two years, the excise policy case was projected as one of the most significant anti-corruption investigations in recent memory. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) — both touted as India’s premier investigative agencies — conducted raids, arrests, custodial interrogations, and media briefings. Senior ministers were jailed. Political careers were declared finished.
And now? A trial court has reportedly found that the prosecution failed to produce concrete, clinching evidence.
If that is indeed the judicial conclusion, the question is unavoidable: was the case overbuilt, over-publicised, and under-proven?
An acquittal at the trial stage is not the end of the legal road. Appeals will follow. Higher courts may re-examine evidence. But politically and institutionally, the damage is immediate. When high-voltage cases collapse at the first judicial test, public confidence in investigative rigor suffers.
Kejriwal’s Political Paradox
No one can accuse Arvind Kejriwal of political naivety. A former IRS officer, he understands file work, bureaucratic layering, and the art of administrative insulation. As Chief Minister, he famously functioned without holding a conventional ministerial portfolio. Was that mere symbolism? Or was it strategic distance from executive signatures?
In governance, decisions are rarely signed in neon ink by the ultimate political beneficiary. Policies move through layers: drafting committees, departmental approvals, cabinet notes, and the lieutenant governor’s clearance. If impropriety exists, it must be traced with documentary precision.
Courts demand proof — not suspicion, not moral outrage, not political narrative.
And therein lies the core issue.
If an excise policy was framed, altered, and then withdrawn within months amid controversy — including changes in commission structures and alleged benefits to private dealers — it may raise legitimate policy questions. But policy anomalies are not crimes unless criminal intent and quid pro quo are demonstrably established.
The judiciary cannot convict because something “doesn’t look right.” It must convict because something is proven wrong.
Judiciary Under the Lens
However, this is where the debate becomes uncomfortable — and necessary.
India’s judiciary has, over the past decade, expanded its footprint through judicial review and activism. From environmental regulations to economic reforms like the now-repealed farm laws, courts have not hesitated to intervene. In many instances, such intervention has been hailed as safeguarding constitutional morality. In others, it has been criticised as encroaching upon executive domain.
But when courts demand absolute evidentiary purity from investigative agencies while simultaneously entertaining sweeping Public Interest Litigations (PILs) that stall infrastructure, taxation reforms, or administrative decisions, questions of consistency arise.
Institutional credibility rests not only on integrity, but on perception. The judiciary cannot afford even the faintest perception of selective stringency — harsh with some, indulgent with others, activist in policy matters yet hyper-technical in corruption trials.
The standard must be uniform. And transparency within the judicial system — including asset disclosures and internal accountability mechanisms — is essential if it expects the political class and bureaucracy to submit to scrutiny without protest.
Accountability cannot be a one-way street.
The Governors and Bureaucratic Web
The excise policy also exposes another grey zone: the role of constitutional offices and bureaucracy. In the National Capital Territory, the Lieutenant Governor plays a unique oversight role. Policies of significant fiscal and regulatory impact pass through Raj Niwas channels.
If irregularities were systemic, where were the institutional red flags? Was the file process flawed? Were objections recorded? Or were all approvals procedurally intact?
India’s bureaucratic ecosystem is tightly networked. Senior civil servants, often from the same service background, operate within shared institutional cultures. That is neither illegal nor improper. But it does mean that tracing accountability in white-collar governance cases demands extraordinary documentary diligence.
Without that, prosecution risks collapsing into conjecture.
The Political Impact
Electorally, the acquittal offers Kejriwal and the Aam Aadmi Party a potent narrative: victimhood vindicated. Expect the phrase “political vendetta” to dominate campaign speeches. Expect comparisons with other leaders who faced investigations before switching political allegiances.
The Opposition will argue that investigative agencies act selectively. The ruling establishment will counter that the legal process is independent and ongoing.
In this crossfire stands Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose personal political capital rests heavily on the plank of probity. For over a decade, he has projected an image of incorruptibility — no familial patronage, no dynastic indulgence, no visible personal enrichment.
Yet, when high-profile corruption cases falter in court, critics inevitably attempt to shift the burden toward the political executive, even if operational control lies elsewhere.
This is why institutional performance matters.
What Happens If Higher Courts Differ?
Legal history teaches caution. Trial court acquittals have been reversed before. Convictions have been overturned. The appellate system exists precisely because evidence can be interpreted differently at different judicial levels.
If a High Court or the Supreme Court later finds stronger evidentiary grounding, today’s political celebrations may appear premature. Conversely, if acquittals are upheld, agencies must introspect deeply.
Either way, the country deserves clarity — not prolonged limbo.
The Larger Reform Question
Perhaps the most uncomfortable question is this: should disproportionate asset growth during public office automatically trigger presumptive scrutiny across political and judicial offices alike?
India’s anti-corruption architecture has long struggled with proof of quid pro quo. Money trails are complex. Intermediaries abound. Digital footprints help, but intent remains hard to prove.
If systemic reform is the goal, then asset transparency norms, real-time auditing mechanisms, and time-bound judicial processes must apply uniformly — from panchayat leaders to parliamentarians, from bureaucrats to members of the higher judiciary.
Selective outrage cannot cleanse public life.
A Moment of Reckoning
The excise verdict is not merely about Kejriwal. It is about institutional credibility.
If investigative agencies overreached, they must correct course. If prosecution was weak, internal accountability must follow. If political narrative outpaced legal preparedness, that gap must close.
Simultaneously, the judiciary must recognise that public confidence depends not only on acquittals and convictions, but on consistent standards, reasoned transparency, and institutional self-discipline.
Democracy survives not when one institution triumphs over another — but when all function within their constitutional limits, with equal accountability.
The coming elections will test political narratives. But the deeper test lies elsewhere: whether India’s institutions can withstand scrutiny without retreating into defensiveness.
Because in the end, verdicts decide cases.
But credibility decides nations.
Very well written and in fact well analysed too. A new dimension is cropping up these days. People’s court is gaining far reaching consequences. This happens when courts don’t function effectively. Ironically, people’s court is also under scanner with the kind of corrupt electoral practices with total connivance of the people who have normalised corruption. Looks like the whole system is vitiated. Where do we begin the cleansing process is a big question.