Supreme Court must direct govt to ensure arrests only after magistrate sees documentary evidence: Sibal

New Delhi: A day after former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal was discharged in the liquor policy case, Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal on Saturday accused the BJP of "weaponising" the law to target opposition leaders.

The senior advocate urged the Supreme Court to direct the government to amend laws for ensuring that arrests are made only after a magistrate is shown oral and documentary evidence justifying the action.

Sibal also accused the government of following a colonial mindset of arresting first and gathering evidence later.

His remarks came after a Delhi court discharged Kejriwal, his former deputy Manish Sisodia and 21 others in the politically charged liquor policy case and pulled up the CBI by saying it found no "overarching conspiracy or criminal intent" in the policy.

"We want to ask the government who will bear responsibility for the 126 days that Kejriwal spent in jail and 503 days that Sisodia spent in jail. There should be accountability," Sibal said at a press conference.

"They (BJP) used to say that it is a Rs 100 crore scam. The judge said that this was premeditated. The judgement said it was a pre-conceived plan to make them accused and then the CBI decided how to do that," he said.

Sibal added that the prime minister keeps talking about the colonial mindset. "This whole law is about the colonial mindset, first to arrest and then gather evidence. This law should be amended." He alleged that probe agencies were following a set pattern by arresting someone and then getting that person to name another individual as accused, whom they want to target.

"They force the person to give a statement in front of the magistrate to accuse others. But they have no evidence and their objective is to help the BJP," he said, slamming the investigative agencies.

The probe goes on and on and people continue to be in jail, Sibal said and cited the example of cases against opposition leaders P Chidambaram, Hemant Soren, Bhupendra Hooda, among others.

"Look at what is happening against Lalu Prasad. There are no facts, this is the colonial mindset. You amended the law but no change was made to such provisions as you had to use them. You have weaponised the law to use it for targeting politicians," he said.

Giving examples of Lalu Prasad, Ashok Gehlot, Sachin Pilot, Farooq and Omar Abdullah and then Mehbooba Mufti, Sibal claimed that only opposition politicians were being targeted.

"We know very well this is not good for the future of India and democracy. I want to request the PM to tell the people of the country that there is no corruption and people will decide whether that is true or not," Sibal said "Don't weaponise the law for political ends," he added.

Sibal said it is his request to all the judicial officers of this country, high court and Supreme Court judges to not allow prosecutions on the basis of unsubstantiated oral statements, without being corroborated by documentary evidence.

The Supreme Court should direct the government to amend law and ensure that arrests can only take place once the magistrate is shown the oral and documentary evidence, Sibal said.

Coming down heavily on the CBI, special judge Jitendra Singh refused to take cognisance of the agency's chargesheet against the 23 accused people.

It also observed that the federal agency's case did not withstand judicial scrutiny, especially when the CBI sought to construct a narrative of conspiracy on mere conjecture.

The CBI has been probing alleged corruption in the formulation and execution of the erstwhile AAP government's now scrapped excise policy for 2021-22.

As news came in of the clean chit in the case that helped bring the AAP government down last February, Kejriwal broke down and said the corruption case against him was the "biggest political conspiracy" in the history of Independent India.