While exonerating all the 23 accused in the Delhi liquor policy case, the Rouse Avenue court questioned the CBI’s decision to label a group of accused persons from southern India as the “South Group” in its chargesheet.

Special Judge Jitender Singh said, “The Court considers it necessary to place on record its concern with the repeated and deliberate use of the expression ‘South Group’ by the investigating agency to describe a set of accused persons, ostensibly on the basis of their regional origin or place of residence.”

“It is equally significant that no comparable regional descriptor has been employed for the remaining accused persons; the prosecution narrative does not speak of any ‘North Group’ or similar categorisation. The selective adoption of a geographically defined label is, therefore, plainly arbitrary and unwarranted,” the court said, adding, “Region-based labelling carries an avoidable undertone and is capable of creating a prejudicial impression.”

The prosecution had alleged that AAP communication in charge Vijay Nair, acting on behalf of the party’s leaders, “received kickbacks to the tune of Rs 100 Crore from a group.” It further alleged, “For convenience, we may call it the South Group (as termed in the statements of various persons recorded during the investigation).”

According to the CBI chargesheet, the South Group referred to businessmen Abhishek Boinpally, Arun Ramchandra Pillai, and chartered accountant Butchibabu Gorantla. Boinpally and Pillai were accused of facilitating the movement of the alleged kickback money of Rs 100 crore, the chargesheet had claimed. Butchibabu was accused of being the front-man of K Kavitha, who was alleged to be the main link between the South Group and AAP leaders, including Manish Sisodia.

The Enforcement Directorate, which did a parallel investigation, had named YSR Congress Party Ongole MP Magunta Srinivasulu Reddy and P Sarath Chandra Reddy of Aurobindo Pharma also in the South Group.

The ED had alleged that the South Group “secured uninhibited access, undue favours, attained stakes in established wholesale businesses and multiple retail zones (over and above what was allowed in the policy).” The ED also claimed that Vijay Nair acted in connivance with Kavitha, Magunta Srinivasulu Reddy, Raghav Magunta, and Sarath Reddy. The group formed a “cartel”, ED observed in its case.

Sources close to some of the accused, who were discharged on Friday, said, “The South Group was just a figment of the CBI’s and ED’s imagination. There was no ‘cartelisation’. There was no criminal activity.”

Twenty-three accused persons, including AAP convener and former Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, were discharged in the corruption case linked to the alleged excise policy “scam”.