The ED submitted an application in an already pending petition, challenging a trial court’s order from the previous year
New Delhi, March 21 – The Delhi High Court has declined to advance the hearing on the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) plea in the money laundering case linked to the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy.
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Justice Ravinder Dudeja, while addressing the request on Friday, stated that the court was dealing with several pending cases and it would not be possible to reschedule the hearing at an earlier date.
He also mentioned that the accused individuals, including Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, and Sanjay Singh, needed time to respond to the plea.
“Since the respondents want to file replies and taking into consideration the status of the court’s board, it may not be possible to pre-pone the date of the matter,”
the judge remarked.
The ED had submitted an application in an already pending petition, challenging a trial court’s order from the previous year. The trial court had directed the ED to provide the accused with certain “unrelied documents“—documents that are not used by the prosecution to support its case.
Alternatively, the ED sought a directive asking the trial court to hear and decide on applications submitted by various parties involved in the case.
Both the ED’s counsel and the accused’s lawyers informed the court that they would approach the trial court on April 3 to request a new hearing date. The High Court permitted the ED to serve its plea electronically to all the accused individuals to save public money.
Earlier, the court had asked 40 accused individuals, including AAP leaders, to respond to the ED’s petition challenging the trial court’s order. This order, issued in November 2024, had instructed the ED to share the charge sheet and digitized records of all “unrelied documents” with the accused.
Among the accused in the money laundering case are former Delhi Chief Minister and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal, senior AAP leaders Manish Sisodia and Sanjay Singh, and Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader K Kavitha. Several businesspersons are also named in the case.
The ED argued that the trial court had wrongly ordered it to provide “unrelied upon documents” at the stage of document scrutiny.
As per the Supreme Court’s directions, the agency stated, only a list of such documents should be shared at this stage, not the documents themselves.
Background of the Case
According to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and ED, irregularities occurred during the modification of the Delhi excise policy, benefiting certain liquor license holders. The policy was introduced by the Delhi government on November 17, 2021, but was scrapped by the end of September 2022 following corruption allegations.
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