In the Delhi Liquor police case, a Delhi court granted bail to two persons on 6 May, Rajesh Joshi and Gautam Malhotra. Special Judge MK Nagpal of Rouse Avenue Courts granted them bail and ordered their release from custody subject to the furnishing of a personal bond of Rs. 2 lakhs each.
After the court order came, the Aam Aadmi Party started its familiar lies and misinformation, claiming that the court had said that there is no evidence in the case, and further claimed its leader Manish Sisodia is kept in jail despite having no evidence against him.
AAP leader and Delhi minister Atishi Marlena demanded an apology from BJP for allegedly defaming Sisodia, claiming that the court has stated in its order that there is “no evidence” to substantiate or corroborate the alleged corruption. She also alleged that BJP was pressuring people to give false statements.
She said, “There were two major allegations. First: Rs 100 crore bribe was received. Second: The amount was spent for Goa elections. But the Rouse Avenue court order, through which two people got bail, should be read properly, as it makes it clear that ED and CBI have no evidence of the corruption of even 1 Rupee. The judge repeatedly said in the 86-page order that there is no evidence.”
Atishi further claimed that the court has said that “There is no specific evidence showing any such cash evidence of bribe or repayment of kickbacks. The only evidence presented has been some vague statements by witnesses, and on the basis of these statements, it cannot be inferred that cash payments were given as bribes.”
She also claimed that while earlier it was alleged that a bribe of Rs 100 crore was paid in the scam, ED has now reduced it to Rs 30 crore.
All these claims by the AAP leader attributing the court order are completely false and baseless, and a perusal of the court order shows that the court never said that there is no evidence in the liquor scam case. All the observations made by the court in the judgement are related to the bail plea by the two petitioners, and they don’t apply to the case as a whole.
In fact, the order makes it clear that the observations are related to the bail applications only, and they are not comments on the merits of the case. In para 80 of the judgement, the judge states, “However, it is made clear that the observations made in this order are only for the purpose of deciding the bail applications of applicants and nothing contained in this order shall tantamount to the expression of any opinion on merits of the case.”
Now, even in the observations in the bail, the court has actually not said that there is no evidence, as opposed to the claim by Atishi that “tthe judge repeatedly said in the 86-page order that there is no evidence.”
What the court said
Most of the text in the 86-page order are reproduction of the arguments made by the counsels of the applicants, where they argued that there is no evidence against their clients in the case. Just because such text appear in the judgement, it does not mean the court said that, and the judgement clearly names the relevant advocates while quoting their arguments.
The court granted bails to Rajesh Joshi and Gautam Malhotra for specific reasons, and not for ‘no evidence that the scam took place’. The court has found that the two accused have no direct links with the alleged scam.
The court found that Rajesh Joshi is not in the liquor business and he did take part in any of the meetings between the other coaccused or conspirators in the case. He is not part of the cartel formed to take undue benefits, and he is found to be not part of the South lobby or any other liquor lobby. Joshi is also not accused of paying bribes to Manish Sisodia, and there is no evidence that he was involved in the transfer of kickback amount of Rs 20 crore or Rs 30 crore. Moreover, there were contradictions in statements regarding the monetary transactions. For these reasons, the court granted bail to him, citing the absence of any satisfactory corroborative material. The court also said that he has been cooperating in the probe, and that he is not a flight risk.
For the other applicant Gautam Malhotra, the court said that he is involved in the liquor business, and while he was part of a cartel, there is no evidence showing that he was involved in paying bribes. The court stated that while he had formed a cartel, that is not enough to claim that it was formed as part of a criminal conspiracy. The court stated that a cartel can be formed for legitimate business purposes.
The court further noted that while Gautam Malhotra is accused of paying Rs 2.5 crore bribe, it was allegedly paid in May 2022, months after the liquor policy was implemented. The ED had said that he was not part of the criminal conspiracy, and he was allegedly forced by Vijay Nayar representing AAP to be involved in the scam.
Considering all the material facts, the court stated that the evidence presented against Gautam Malhotra is not sufficient to attract the provisions of Section 45 of the PMLA to deny bail to him. The court also said that the applicant Gautam Malhotra also cannot be considered to be a flight risk as he belongs to a family having well-established liquor manufacturing business in the State of Punjab and also selling their liquor brands in other States and his father is also stated to be a senior politician in the State of Punjab.
For these reasons, Rajesh Joshi and Gautam Malhotra were granted bail against personal bonds of Rs 2 lakh each with one surety for the same amount.
AAP lies that bribe amount came down from Rs 100 crore to Rs 30 crore.
AAP leader Atishi also claimed that ED had reduced the bribe amount from Rs 100 crore to Rs 30 crore, which is another misquote from the judgement. She said, “The story of ED started with Rs 100 crore, but then itself came down to Rs 30 crore, as the agency has mentioned Rs 30 crore in its chargesheet. It was also alleged that a person named Rajesh Joshi took these Rs 30 crore of bribes to Goa. The court has also stated that there is no independent evidence collected by the agency to substantiate or corroborate this fact.”
The fact is, ED has not reduced the amount of alleged bribe paid in the case in total. The Rs 30 crore figure comes from the judgement, where it was referring to the allegation that Rajesh Joshi was involved in the transfer of a kickback amount of Rs 30 crore from the South Lobby to Vijay Nair through Dinesh Arora, who has turned approver in the case.
While the court said that there is no strong evidence to link Rajesh Joshi with the bribe amount, nowhere did the judgement mention that the total amount of the bribe has come down from Rs 100 crore to Rs 30 crore. This Rs 30 crore was only a part of the total bribe amount, which was allegedly paid in several parts.
In fact, the judgement makes it clear that the Rs 30 crore is part of the total Rs 100 crore alleged kickback. It says, “It can be observed that the alleged kickback amount is very huge i.e. around Rs. 100 crores and even a huge amount of around Rs. 20-30 crores is alleged to have been transferred through this applicant.”
The judgement mentioned in multiple places that according to the prosecution, a kickback of around Rs 100 crore was paid by the South Lobby. Therefore, the allegation that the alleged bribe amount has come down is absolutely false, and a blatant misquote of the court order.
