New Delhi, May 18 The Delhi High Court will on Tuesday hear the CBI's petition against the trial court order discharging former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, AAP leader Manish Sisodia and 21 others in the liquor policy case as well as the criminal contempt case against them.
While the CBI's petition is listed before Justice Manoj Jain, the contempt case is scheduled to be taken up by a bench of Justices Navin Chawla and Ravinder Dudeja.
Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma had on May 14 initiated criminal contempt proceedings against Kejriwal, Sisodia, and other AAP leaders including Durgesh Pathak, Sanjay Singh, and Saurabh Bhardwaj over their "vilifying" social media posts against her in relation to the excise policy case.
Justice Sharma said the former Delhi chief minister "orchestrated a calculated campaign" of vilification against her on social media instead of pursuing his legal remedies and clarified that the CBI's petition against the discharge of all accused persons would now be taken up by another bench.
The judge took exception to several social media posts by the proposed contemnors that attributed "political allegiance" and "affiliation" to her and allegedly targeted her by posting a misleading "edited" video of a speech she gave at an educational institution in Varanasi.
She also noted the wide circulation of clips from the court proceedings in the case, stating that the proposed contemnors were creating a "parallel narrative", and that "remaining silent" was not judicial restraint but a "surrender before a powerful litigant".
On February 27, the trial court discharged Kejriwal, Sisodia and 21 others in the liquor policy case, as it ruled that the case was wholly unable to survive judicial scrutiny and stood discredited in its entirety.
After Justice Sharma dismissed their applications seeking her recusal in the case on April 20, Kejriwal, Sisodia and Pathak had written a letter to Justice Sharma, stating they would not appear before her personally or through a lawyer and would follow "Mahatma Gandhi's path of Satyagraha".
