Spotlight this week: Judge Jitendra Singh who discharged Delhi excise policy case accused

Spotlight is a series where we shine the, well, spotlight on members of the legal fraternity who made the news over the past week.

This week, the spotlight is on Special Judge (PC Act) Jitendra Singh who on February 27 discharged all 23 accused in the Delhi excise policy case including former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and Telangana Jagruthi president K Kavitha.

The Rouse Avenue Court judge did not merely discharge the political heavyweights of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) with a dispassionate or technical order. He delivered a 598-page judgment eviscerating the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for procedural lapses, violation of constitutional principles and reliance on hearsay evidence.

In fact, the Court issued a scathing indictment of the CBI, holding that the probe was neither objective nor impartial.

The case arose in 2022 when the CBI registered a First Information Report (FIR) alleging that the Delhi Excise Policy of 2021-22 was manipulated to facilitate monopolisation and cartelisation of liquor trade in Delhi.

The CBI case was registered on a complaint made by Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena on July 20, 2022. 

The probe agency said that AAP and its leaders received kickbacks from liquor manufacturers due to manipulation of the policy. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) also later registered a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in the matter.

What followed was a series of arrests of opposition leaders, criticised by some quarters as being politically motivated.

It was alleged that a criminal conspiracy was hatched by AAP leaders, including Sisodia and Kejriwal and other unidentified and unnamed private persons/entities at the stage of the policy’s formulation.

The conspiracy, it was alleged, involved loopholes “intentionally” left or created in the policy. These loopholes were allegedly meant to favour some liquor licensees and conspirators post the tender process, it was claimed.

The political leaders spent a considerable time in jail as the Rouse Avenue Court and the Delhi High Court denied them bail. It was the Supreme Court which later granted them relief.

That all 23 accused in a case were acquitted is no small matter. Judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts across the country have always lamented the reluctance shown by trial courts to be bail or acquittal friendly.

In this backdrop, Judge Jitendra Singh's judgment stands out for its unwavering indictment of the Central agency.

He went a step further and ordered departmental proceedings against the CBI officer who investigated the excise policy case for making public servant Kuldeep Singh the accused number one in the case. The judge said that the IO's probe was “pre-meditated and choreographed” and that the allegations against the public servant were not an objective of an impartial investigation but were framed to fit a preconceived narrative.

Apart from the CBI, the judge criticised the ED too for its practice of making arrests and filing prosecution complaints in money laundering cases even before the facts of the corresponding predicate offence cases undergo judicial scrutiny.

He noted that the cases under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) imperil an individual’s liberty on the basis of a presumption of “proceeds of crime” arising out of the scheduled offences. The accused is then required to meet stringent conditions for bail to avoid prolonged incarceration even at the pre-trial stage, the judge added.

This is not the first high profile case the judge has had to handle ever since he was transferred to Rouse Avenue Court on October 25, 2024.

He was an Additional Sessions Judge (Electricity) at Rohini Courts before his current posting.

As Special Judge (PC Act) at the Rouse Avenue Court, Judge Singh is at the centre of several politically important cases, as Rouse Avenue is the designated court for criminal cases involving former and sitting members of parliament (MPs) and the members of the legislative assembly (MLAs).

He started dealing with the excise policy case in October last year. Before him, judges Vishal Gogne, Dig Vinay Singh, Kaveri Baweja and MK Nagpal had dealt with the matter. 

Before the excise policy case came to his court, in March 2025, Judge Singh upheld a magistrate’s order issuing a summons to the Delhi government minister Kapil Mishra over his tweets allegedly promoting enmity between sections of society in connection with elections. 

Mishra was booked under Section 125 of the Representation of People Act, 1951, in January 2020 for his statements and tweets. 

The BJP leader had made two tweets in Hindi stating that on February 8 (the day of voting for Delhi assembly elections) will be an India versus Pakistan match. He said that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Congress made mini Pakistans like Shaheen Bagh, and in response to that, on February 8, India will stand up. He added that whenever traitors create Pakistan in India, patriotic India will stand up. 

In a statement to the media, he also said, "Shaheen Bagh me Pakistan ki entry (Pakistan enters Shaheen Bagh)”. 

While deciding the case, Judge Singh rejected Mishra’s stand that his statements never referred to any caste, community, religion or race. He ruled that the submission was preposterous as the reference to Pakistan is “an unmistaken innuendo to persons of a particular ‘religious community’”.

“This can be effortlessly understood even by a layman, let alone by a reasonable man,” Judge Singh observed. 

He added Mishra’s statements were "a brazen attempt to promote enmity on the grounds of religion by way of indirectly referring to a ‘country’ which unfortunately in common parlance is often used to denote the members of a particular religion". 

“The word ‘Pakistan’ is very skillfully weaved by the revisionist [Mishra] in his alleged statements to spew hatred, careless to communal polarisation that may ensue in the election campaign, only to garner votes,” he said. 

Another matter of political significance came to Judge Singh in March 2025 when AAP leader Satyender Jain filed a revision plea challenging the magistrate’s order rejecting his criminal defamation case against BJP MP Bansuri Swaraj. 

Jain had sued Swaraj over statements by her on a new channel. Swaraj had allegedly said that ₹3 crore was recovered from Jain’s house and that 1.8 kg of gold along with 133 gold coins were also seized from the same location. 

After considering the case, Judge Singh held that Swaraj’s statement was a verbatim reiteration of the tweet published by the ED on its official social media handle. 

The Court added that it cannot conclude that Swaraj acted with the intention to defame or malign Jain. 

In another case in November 2024, Judge Singh ordered the release of AAP MLA Amantullah Khan in an Enforcement Directorate (ED) case related to alleged irregularities in recruitment at the Delhi Waqf Board. 

Judge Jitendra Singh's record stands in stark contrast to what we have come to expect from trial courts of late.

The spotlight on him seems fitting.