Aam Aadmi Party leader Manish Sisodia walked out of Delhi's Tihar Jail on Friday evening (August 9) after Supreme Court granted bail to him in the Excise Policy case. His counsel furnished bail bond before Delhi Court. He was welcomed by AAP leaders including Sanjay Singh and Atishi.
The former deputy chief minister of Delhi was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on February 26, 2023 for purported irregularities in the formulation and implementation of the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy 2021-22. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested him in the money laundering case stemming from the CBI FIR on March 9, 2023.
He resigned from the Delhi cabinet on February 28, 2023. Sisodia had sought bail contending that he has been in custody for 17 months and the trial against him has not yet started. The ED and the CBI had opposed his bail pleas.
Manish Sisodia granted bail after 17 months
The Supreme Court on Friday said the trial court's finding that AAP leader Manish Sisodia was responsible for delaying the trial in the Delhi excise policy cases was not supported by the record. While granting bail to Sisodia in the corruption and money laundering cases linked to the alleged Delhi excise policy scam, the apex court noted there were around 69,000 pages of documents related to the two matters. "Taking into consideration the huge magnitude of the documents involved, it cannot be stated that the accused is not entitled to take a reasonable time for inspection of the said documents," a bench of Justices B R Gavai and K V Viswanathan said. "In order to avail the right to fair trial, the accused cannot be denied the right to have inspection of the documents including the 'un-relied upon documents'," it said.
