CBI says Kejriwal ‘main conspirator’; not named in charge sheet yet

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal asked then YSRCP Lok Sabha MP Magunta Srinivasulu Reddy to provide “monetary funding to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)” while assuring support in the liquor business in the national capital, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has claimed, while adding that this fact has been corroborated from the “contemporaneous documentary material”.

The agency has called Kejriwal “one of the main conspirators” in irregularities linked to the excise policy 2021-22.

“Arvind Kejriwal....is one of the main conspirators of the criminal conspiracy in the commission of offences herein (referring to excise policy). It has been revealed that Vijay Nair (former media in-charge of AAP), a close associate of Kejriwal, was contacting various liquor manufacturers and traders and demanding undue gratification since March 2021, for incorporation of provisions favourable to them in the upcoming Delhi excise policy 2021-22,” CBI said in a Delhi court on Wednesday while seeking the CM’s remand.

The agency said on Wednesday that Reddy — who retained the Ongole seat in Andhra Pradesh in the 2024 general elections, but on a Telugu Desam Party (TDP) ticket — met Kejriwal on March 16, 2021, in his office in the Delhi secretariat and requested him to provide support in liquor business in Delhi. Kejriwal assured him of support and asked him to contact Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader K Kavitha in this regard as she was working with Kejriwal’s team, it claimed.

“Kejriwal also told Reddy to provide monetary funding to AAP. The said fact duly finds corroboration from the contemporaneous documentary material on record,” the agency said.

The AAP and Kejriwal have denied all charges of irregularities in the excise regime, and have called the case a “witch-hunt” and “political vendetta” at the behest of the Union government.

HT reached out to Reddy, who did not comment on the matter.

With the court remanding him to three-day CBI custody on Wednesday, Kejriwal is likely to be confronted with the “documentary evidence” collected by the anti-corruption agency as well as key witnesses, said an officer who asked not to be named.

Kavitha, according to CBI, told Reddy in a meeting on March 20, 2021 at her residence in Hyderabad that a total amount of ₹100 crore must be arranged for AAP as upfront money to be given by March 2021.

Kavitha, who is currently lodged in Tihar jail, has denied the allegations.

CBI has further alleged that the L1 (wholesale) licence given to Indospirits (a company in which K Kavitha and Reddy’s son Raghav Magunta had stakes, and got nine zones in Delhi) was “in violation of the rules and despite pendency of complaints of cartelization and blacklisting against the partners of Indospirits – on the explicit direction and coercion of co-accused (former deputy chief minister) Manish Sisodia”.

Kejriwal was first questioned by the CBI in April 2023.

The agency has, so far, filed four charge sheets in the case against 17 accused persons including Sisodia and Kavitha. To be sure, it has not named Kejriwal as an accused in any of the charge sheets.

The agency claimed in its previous charge sheet that out of ₹100 crore received by AAP as kickbacks, ₹44.45 crore was transferred to Goa during June 2021 to January 2022 through “hawala channels” and was used for the AAP’s election campaign.

CBI has claimed the new policy was formulated on May 20 and 21, 2021, and it was “processed and approved by the council of ministers (in Delhi government) through circulation on May 21, 2021, in a very hurried manner despite it being the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic”.

Earlier, ED arrested Kejriwal on March 21 and filed a charge sheet against him on May 17.

The Delhi government’s 2021-22 excise policy aimed to revitalise the city’s flagging liquor business. It aimed to replace a sales-volume based regime with a license fee one for traders, and promised swankier stores, free of the infamous metal grilles, ultimately giving customers a better buying experience. The policy also introduced discounts and offers on the purchase of liquor, a first for Delhi.

The plan, however, came to an abrupt end, with Delhi’s lieutenant governor VK Saxena recommending a probe into alleged irregularities in the regime.