NEW DELHI: Courts cannot allow the power of narrative to replace the system of evidence and whatever serious allegations may emerge, they must withstand scrutiny under settled legal principles, a judge said on Friday while removing Telangana President Jagruthi K Kavitha and 22 others in the Delhi tax policy case.
Special Judge Jitendra Singh of the Ross Avenue District Court here said the only material relied upon by the CBI to suggest a link between Kavitha and former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was Magunta Srinivasulu Reddy’s statement.
“According to him, when he met Accused 18, he was told that Accused 17 would contact him. Beyond this assurance, no circumstance, meeting, communication or public act is jointly attributed to them and despite the absence of any other material, they are depicted as principal actors acting through intermediaries,” the judge observed.
He took note of the prosecution’s allegations that when Reddy visited Kavitha’s house in March 2021, she talked about the arrangement $100 Crores as advance money.
“The manner in which this allegation is presented suggests that even before the alleged meeting of the co-conspirators in June, the entire arrangement was settled. This means that one person was already anticipating a collective decision that had not yet been taken,” the judge said.
He added that instead of strengthening the case, the submission of statements by Reddy, his son and approver Raghav Magunta explaining the demand, payment and use of the alleged advance money “created internal tension” in the CBI’s theory.
“Even if the material is taken at face value, a straightforward reading raises doubts as to whether the investigation has traced a coherent chain or whether isolated events have been put together to create the appearance of a larger design,” the court said.
It also destroyed the allegation that Kavitha obtained undue benefits through a sham land deal in exchange for service rendered to another accused, Sarath Chandra Reddy, in granting retail areas as “bereft of evidentiary basis”.
The judge said the attempt to treat the land deal as a means of recovery was also internally inconsistent with the prosecution’s narrative.
Regarding the claim that the contribution of CSR $Aurobindo Pharma Limited provided Rs 80 lakh to Telangana Jagruthi in June 2021 as a hidden means of transferring illegal gratification to Kavitha, and this was legally unsustainable, the court said.
“From the materials currently available, the CSR contribution appears to be an overt and deliberate transaction, not supported by evidence of demand, barter, concealment or misuse. The allegation is based on inference and not a clear connection to any corrupt act,” the statement said.
The court said the record did not reveal any “coordinated funding mechanism” attributable to Kavitha.
She said that criminal law does not apply to impression, but to admissible materials.
“On closer examination, the prima facie coherence depends largely on the statements of witnesses who stand on equal footing. One of the accomplice witnesses is shown corroborating another witness and the concurrence’s version is said to be corroborated by a witness whose role, according to the prosecution, is not free from suspicion,” the court observed.
It said that when the statements of Reddy, Magunta and others, who form part of the same alleged chain, were relied upon to corroborate each other, and when there was no documentary evidence, financial trail or independent electronic record to prove it, the prosecution’s narrative was legally fragile.
“The fragility becomes even more apparent when each link is examined individually, in terms of date, place, mode of transmission and route of movement where gaps become visible. Fundamental facts are left to inference, the trail of funds is unclear, timing is inconsistent, and the alleged recovery predates the profits themselves from which they are said to have arisen,” the court said.
Courts cannot “allow the power of narrative to supersede the evidentiary system,” she said.
“No matter how serious the allegations may seem, they must stand up to scrutiny under well-established legal principles. When examined in this way, what is presented as a single coherent plan may in fact consist of a series of assertions built upon one another, without consistent, independent support.
“Like a pack of cards, once the rule becomes unstable, the entire arrangement begins to fall apart. And that is exactly what happened here,” the court said.
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