CBI challenges relief for Kejriwal, Sisodia in court
Earlier today, Special Judge Jitendra Singh ordered closure of the case filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation against the accused.
The corridors of Rouse Avenue Court in Delhi have witnessed many dramatic moments, but Friday morning brought something extraordinary. As Special Judge Jitender Singh prepared to deliver his verdict, the atmosphere crackled with tension. For over two years, this case had dominated headlines, sent political heavyweights to jail, and reshaped the capital’s political landscape.
Arvind Kejriwal, former Delhi Chief Minister, stood outside the courtroom struggling to compose himself. The man who had governed the national capital for nearly a decade, who had spent months in jail, who had watched his government face relentless scrutiny, broke down before television cameras.
Beside him, Manish Sisodia placed a comforting hand on his shoulder—a gesture of solidarity between two men who had spent seventeen and five months respectively in custody.
For Sisodia, the moment carried particular weight. The court had scrutinized every allegation against him—the manipulated margins, the hidden kickbacks, the conspiracy theories. Yet the judge found no financial trail, no document, no recovery linking him to any illicit payment. Seventeen months of jail, and the evidence simply wasn’t there.
The court’s language was scathing. The CBI’s case, the judge observed, stood “discredited in its entirety.” The investigation appeared to have proceeded on a “predetermined trajectory,” stitching together “disparate fragments” to create an illusion of conspiracy where none existed.
Outside the court, AAP supporters gathered, their emotions mirroring their leaders’. Some wept openly. Others chanted slogans. A few simply stood in stunned silence, processing what this meant for the political movement they had invested their hopes in.
But even as tears dried on Kejriwal’s face, the legal machinery ground forward. Within hours, the CBI moved the Delhi High Court, challenging the trial court’s order.
For the investigators who built this case over years, Friday’s verdict was a professional humiliation. For the accused who spent months behind bars, it was vindication tinged with the bitterness of lost time. For Kejriwal’s family—his wife and children who faced public taunts, who watched him arrested and jailed—it was something more personal.
Later that evening, Kejriwal arrived at AAP headquarters in an open-top car, through crowds throwing Holi colors and bursting crackers. At the press conference, he was more composed, but the earlier rawness lingered beneath the surface.
“I have only earned honesty in my life. It matters to me when someone calls me dishonest,” he said.
Across the city, Delhi’s new Chief Minister Rekha Gupta offered a different perspective. she asked. “Even today you are shedding crocodile tears.”
The political battle will continue. The High Court will now weigh the CBI’s appeal. But for one Friday in February, in a crowded courtroom and on television screens across India, the story was not about legal technicalities or political strategy. It was about a man crying because his name had been cleared, and another man placing a hand on his shoulder—two friends who had been through fire together, and emerged on the other side.
The tears, whatever one thinks of the politics behind them, were real. And in a world of carefully crafted political images, that rawness spoke louder than any press release.