Court slams CBI use of 'South' in liquor policy case against Kejriwal, Kavitha; cites ‘Dominican’ example from US

ANew new delhi margaret court on fri, spell discharging former Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal and 22 others in the CBI's excise policy case, delivered sharp remarks about the probe agency itself, questioning its decision to label a purported group of liquor businessmen from southern India as the "south group" in its chargesheet.The court even referred to a case in the United States where a court had objected to a regional tag being used — in that case “Dominican” for alleged drug dealers who happened to be from the Dominican Republic.What court said on use of regional tagThe order by Special Judge Jitender Singh of the Rouse Avenue Court said, “The Court considers it necessary to place on record its concern with the repeated and deliberate use of the expression ‘South Group’ by the investigating agency to describe a set of accused persons, ostensibly on the basis of their regional origin or place of residence."Orally, too, the judge remarked: “If the same chargesheet would have been filed in a court in Chennai, it would have been perceived offensive.”The order stated: “Such a nomenclature finds no foundation in law, does not correspond to any legally cognisable classification, and is wholly alien to the statutory framework governing criminal liability."No use of ‘North Group’, notes judgeThe section sub-headed ‘Use of the Phrase “South Group”’, said further: “It is equally significant that no comparable regional descriptor has been employed for the remaining accused persons; the prosecution narrative does not speak of any ‘North Group’ or similar categorisation. The selective adoption of a geographically defined label is, therefore, plainly arbitrary and unwarranted."The court noted that “the concern is not confined to semantics”."Region-based labelling carries an avoidable undertone and is capable of creating a prejudicial impression. It detracts from the settled requirement that criminal proceedings must remain dispassionate, evidence-centric, and insulated from extraneous considerations,” it added.The court noted that this expression was repeatedly employed in successive chargesheets and, “for that limited reason alone, this Court has been constrained to refer to it while summarising and analysing the prosecution case”.But, the court noted that, “in a constitutional order founded upon equality before law and the unity and integrity of the nation, descriptors rooted in regional identity serve no legitimate investigative or prosecutorial purpose and are manifestly inappropriate".It further added, “Such reference cannot, however, be construed as approval or endorsement of the terminology itself. The continued use of this label, despite the absence of any legally sustainable basis, carries a real risk of colouring perception, causing unintended prejudice, and diverting focus from the evidentiary material."Reference to US caseMaking its point about use of such labels, the court cited a case from the US (Unted States v. Cabrera) from the year 2000, wherein the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit “treated the issue as going to the very root of a fair criminal trial”.The US court “went so far as to set aside the conviction itself on account of the repeated use of identity-based terminology… where such identity had no bearing on the elements of the offence", the Delhi court order said.It cited to the US court's comments: "The Court recorded its disapproval in unambiguous terms: 'The government's repeated references to the defendants as 'Dominican drug dealers' were improper. The ethnicity or national origin of a defendant is not relevant to proving the elements of a crime. Such references invite the jury to draw impermissible inferences based on nationality rather than evidence, and they risk appealing to bias rather than reason."The court also said that prosecutors have been warned earlier too “that injecting ethnicity into a criminal trial, when it has no bearing on the issues being tried, is error. ‘Criminal trials must be about what the defendant did, not who the defendant is.'"What was the 'South Group' or ‘South Lobby’?The "south group" — or “south lobby”, as it was variously referred to in CBI and Enforcement Directorate (ED) documents — was the label given to a cluster of liquor businessmen, largely from southern India, whom the agencies alleged had paid kickbacks to key Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders in exchange for favourable treatment under Delhi's 2021-22 excise policy.The agencies alleged that money was routed through hawala transactions and shell companies, eventually funding the AAP's election campaign in Goa.K Kavitha, the Telangana Jagruthi party president and daughter of former chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, was among those named in connection with this alleged group. She was arrested by the ED in March 2024 and spent months in custody before being granted bail.On Friday, she too was discharged by the court.The ED had alleged that Kavitha was a key link between the so-called south group and AAP leadership, claiming that a conspiracy had been hatched at her Delhi residence. The agency alleged that the liquor businessmen, through Kavitha's alleged facilitation, had "agreed to pay" ₹100 crore as kickback to AAP in exchange for undue benefits under the policy.Label under scrutinyK Kavitha's lawyer Nitesh Rana, speaking after the discharge order, noted that the court and the judge objected to the usage of the term refering to “south”.The discharge order was sweeping in its rejection of the CBI's case. The court found "no material at all" against the accused to support the prosecution's evidence, concluding that "the case does not survive judicial scrutiny." It flagged "misleading projections in the chargesheet" and noted that it had "so many lacunas which do not support the evidence", HT has reported.The court also criticised the agency's reliance on approver statements, warning that using a pardoned accused to fill investigative gaps and rope in additional persons was constitutionally improper.Kavitha, who described the entire episode as “a part of political vendetta”, said: “Who will account for the time that I lost with my kids? Who will account for the time that I lost with my family?”The ED's separate case looks set to be impacted, said Kavitha's lawyer: "Once the predicate offence is dropped, the money laundering case cannot be further pursued."The CBI has decided to go to the Delhi High Court against the Rouse Avenue court's decision.