Kejriwal-Sisodia Discharge Row: Delhi HC Rejects Vijay Nair's Bid to Change Hearing Order

The Delhi High Court on Friday rejected former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) communication in-charge Vijay Nair's plea to modify an earlier order on hearing the CBI's challenge to the discharge of Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia and 21 others in the Delhi excise policy case.

Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma dismissed Nair's application, finding no grounds to alter the order passed on May 8, which stated that objections to the maintainability of the Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) revision petition would be heard alongside the main challenge.

Nair had argued that the order incorrectly recorded that the respondents had agreed to having the maintainability issue considered at the same time as the CBI's petition. He maintained that this was a preliminary legal question that should be decided before the court examined the merits of the agency's challenge.

Rejecting the plea, the court noted that the matter had come up before the concerned roster bench on six occasions between May and October without any objection being raised or an application filed to correct the earlier order.

The court observed that its orders record what transpires during proceedings and what is dictated in the order sheet before publication. It found Nair's submissions insufficient to justify modifying the May 8 order.

The CBI opposed the application, alleging that it had been filed belatedly as a delaying tactic.

Nair has separately challenged the maintainability of the CBI's petition, arguing that the advocates who instituted it were neither public prosecutors appointed under Section 18 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, nor advocates holding a vakalatnama executed on behalf of the agency.

The case stems from a February 27 trial court order discharging Kejriwal, Sisodia and 21 others. The CBI challenged the decision as patently illegal and perverse, alleging that the trial court conducted a mini-trial while considering whether charges should be framed and relied on a selective reading of the prosecution's case.

The High Court's rejection of Nair's plea leaves the earlier hearing arrangement unchanged, without deciding the merits of the CBI's challenge.