"Truth Has Won": Arvind Kejriwal On Judge Stepping Away From Liquor Case

Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal, unfazed as Delhi High Court judge Swarana Kanta Sharma ordered contempt proceedings against him, applauded her decision to step away from the excise case. "The Truth has won, Gandhi-ji's Satyagrah has won," the former Delhi Chief Minister said in his first response on social media platform X.

Kejriwal and the others who were accused in the excise policy case, had not wanted Justice Sharma to hear the case, saying they were concerned that they would not get justice from her court. But the judge had refused to recuse herself, saying it would set a bad precedent. 

Now, with Kejriwal and other AAP leaders posting multiple videos on social media, which the judge described as "Extremely vilifying, extremely contemptuous, and defamatory material", she has started contempt proceedings. 

Besides Kejriwal, those in the dock include ⁠Manish Sisodia, Durgesh Pathak, ⁠Sanjay Singh, Vinay Mishra, Devesh Vishwakarma and Saurabh Bhardwaj.

Read: "Arvind Kejriwal Cannot Intimidate Me": High Court Initiates Contempt Action

In her order today, Justice Sharma said the excise policy case will be heard by a different bench. She, meanwhile, will hear the contempt case, since it concerns her family. 

The judge said she would not take back her order on the recusal, but because she has started contempt proceedings, it is appropriate that the matter is transferred to some other judge. "This is judicial discipline," she added. 

सत्य की जीत हुई।

गांधी जी के सत्याग्रह की एक बार फिर जीत हुई।

— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) May 14, 2026

Kejriwal's reference to Satyagraha was a shoutout to his earlier post - the one that had offended the judge. In it, he had explained his decision to skip the hearing and claimed that it was the logical move if one followed the path shown by Mahatma Gandhi. 

He had also written to the judge, saying he will neither appear before her in person nor through legal counsel in the liquor policy case as he has lost hope of getting justice from her and would follow Mahatma Gandhi's path of "Satyagraha"

Read: "Ready To Bear Consequences": Full Text Of Arvind Kejriwal's Letter To Judge

The excise case had come up in the high court after the CBI filed a petition, challenging the trial court order that had given a clean chit to all the 23 accused in the case including the AAP leaders.