PMLA - Delhi Liquor Policy Case

The timeline of the Delhi Liquor Policy Scam Case looks like a game of snakes and ladders. For the purposes of this article, we have refrained from going into the merits of the case and the 598-page judgement of the Delhi trial court in the matter. We simply take a look at the timeline which offers some interesting revelations.

• During August-November 2022, the CBI and the ED registered the corruption and money-laundering cases almost simultaneously. The ED then quickly files a chargesheet where Arvind Kejriwal is not named as an accused.
  
  
• In March 2024, the ED arrested Arvind Kejriwal. For the first time in independent India, a sitting Chief Minister of a state was arrested. The Lok Sabha elections were scheduled after two months.
  
  
• By May 2024, the ED had already filed multiple chargesheets in the case. Only in the 7th chargesheet it named Arvind Kejriwal as an accused, after his arrest. This happened just before the elections 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
  
  
• In June 2024, Kejriwal was granted bail by the Delhi trial court. The next day, the bail was stayed by the Delhi High Court upon oral mentioning by the ED. Subsequently, the bail was cancelled by the High Court.
  
  
• After rejection from the High Court, Kejriwal appealed for bail in the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, the CBI emerged. Kejriwal was arrested by the CBI while already in custody in the ED case. Kejriwal secured bail in the ED case but had to continue incarceration because of being arrested by the CBI as well now.
  
  
• In July 2024, The Delhi High Court reserved its order in the bail matter in the CBI case. The same day, the CBI filed its 5th and final chargesheet in the case where Kejriwal was named as an accused for the first time. Then the High Court's order came where Kejriwal's bail was rejected.
  
  
• Finally, Kejriwal secured bail in September 2024 from the Supreme Court and discharge in the entire case in February 2026.
  
  
• This is the second time in three months when a high-profile political ED case has fallen flat because the predicate offence has been invalidated - the previous one being National Herald in December 2025.
  
  
• The government had already challenged the closure of a ED case upon closure of the predicate offence in the National Herald case. This goes against the principles established in various Supreme Court judgements including Vijay Madanlal Choudhury. But the matter remains sub-judice for now.
  
  
• Meanwhile, the government had proposed the 130th Constitutional Amendment Bill in August 2025. It may be time to review that.

Winter has Come

I record these words in the manner expected of a sworn maester of the Citadel, though I fear the quill trembles more from futility than cold. A maester is meant to chronicle wars, lineages, treaties, and the slow workings of governance. For most of my life, I believed such things to be the true machinery of the world, the gears upon which the fortunes of kings and smallfolk alike turned. Yet for years… mayhaps for decades… my memory adheres to dates now only loosely, like old wax to a candle stub. For a long time I warnings of something far simpler and far graver – the Others.

I spoke of them not as the singers do, cladding truth in pretty liesso that a frightened child may sleep; nor as the old maids do, twisting fear into fables to keep children from wandering too far. No, I relied on dusty accounts preserved in rotten parchment and faded ink, the sort of scholarship that kings assume carries no blood. These were not stories. They were records, measurements, testimonies, and observations. Dry things. Tedious things. The sort of things only maesters pretend to find stirring. Yet I believed, with a young man’s stubbornness, that if truth were laid bare plainly enough, even the thickest lord might at last take heed.

I spoke their warnings plainly. I wrote treatises. Tedious, meticulous, footnoted treatises. I implored lordlings and septons, even the Citadel itself. I spoke to any steward or captain or hedge knight fool enough to lend an ear – but few cared to listen. Few cared. Fewer still believed. Those who did were dismissed as fools – men unhinged from reason, or worse, men seeking attention.

A wandering wildling would sometimes stagger south of the Wall bearing warnings – breathless fragments about the dead stirring, the woods whispering, the cold walking. These men had little in the world – no property, no noble sigil, not even a name worth recording. Their words were worth even less. They were waved away with the same casual motion one uses to scatter crows from grain.

The North was supposed to remember. A proud boast, repeated around hearths, embroidered on banners, recited with the solemnity of prayer, etched into the very identity of their houses. But remembering is not the same as understanding. They remembered the words, not the meaning. They repeated winter is coming as one might repeat the humdrum greeting of a passing acquaintance, never pausing to ask what winter meant, what it required, what harbingers announced its arrival, or what winter demanded of them.

Winter does not always announce itself with roaring winds and white horizons. It begins subtly. A frost lingering longer than it should. A sickness that spreads in odd patterns. Crops that turn to grey mush before harvest. A dull haze clinging to the air, dimming the sun to a copper smear. A strange stillness in the city.

All things I dutifully noted, dated, compared with records centuries old. It was my duty to be dull, and I was dutiful in it. I presented my findings before maesters far more learned than I – men who had forgotten more than I would learn in a lifetime – they nodded politely while their eyes drifted to more fashionable concerns – trade fleets, naval skirmishes, the lineage of some minor house’s third son.

So winter bided its time. Then it leapt.

It happened faster than any chronicle could capture. Villages emptied overnight. At first one. Then three more. Then dozens. Ravens stopped returning. The forests to the far north went silent. When the truth could no longer be denied, the great lords sent out their men, but swords and shields forged in the south do little against cold that devours not only flesh but will. Steel cannot wound cold. The Wall fell. the winds that followed were not winds at all, but something older wearing wind as a mask.

Still I wrote. I recorded. It is the maester’s duty. I noted the creeping chill in my bones, the dimming of the sun, the way ink froze at the tip of the quill before I could shape a full sentence. I wrote even when my breath smoked and vanished faster than I could draw the next. I can hear them outside – patient, tireless, without breath or warmth or haste. They have no need for haste.

I had believed, foolishly, that scholarship might serve as shield. I thought knowledge, once shared, would rouse men to action. But the scrolls gathered dust while the world burned white. Men preferred their comforts, certainties, routines. Their markets and their little disputes. Even as the cold thickened around them, they clung to the familiar warmth of denial.

Some whispered, in those last days, that this winter was unlike the others. They were correct, though far too late in being so. Winter had not merely arrived. It had awakened.

Perhaps that is why I write this last entry. Not for men, for there are none left to read it. But for myself, to pretend that I once belonged to a world that believed in reason.

My hands grow stiff. My breath smokes and then fades. The ink congeals. My heart slows. I understand, now, that I am the last. The last to think, to fear, to remember. When I fall, the world of men ends.

They are at the door.

I can feel the cold fingers already pressing into my bones, hollowing out my bones one breath at a time. There is no pain. Pain belongs to the living. Soon I will stand again, pale and silent, and whatever thoughts once lived behind these eyes will scatter like snow in a hard wind.

These are my dying words.

No human will ever read them.

No maester will stumble upon these scrolls. No child will whisper these lines as bedtime fright. No king will consult them for counsel. The last eyes capable of understanding this script are the ones growing dim even as I write.

And when I rise again, I will not remember the warnings I gave, nor the truth they carried, nor the world that ignored them until it was far too late.

Winter has come, and there is no one left to heed it.

PMLA – ED vs. Didi

On 8^th January, 2026, the city of Kolkata saw an interesting altercation between the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the West Bengal Chief Minister, Smt. Mamata Banerjee. This article does not claim to be an exhaustive or even an accurate description of the events that have transpired since. There is much to be revealed (or forgotten, depending on the media narrative) in the days to come. However, this article aims to answer (or just raise) 6 questions that remain unanswered as on the night on 11^th January, 2026.

1.      Does the ED need to inform the local police of a raid prior to commencing the raid?

As per multiple media reports, the raid at Pratik Jain’s residence started at around 6 AM at Loudon Street. A police sergeant arrived at Jain’s residence at around 9 AM, but was denied entry. It is also reported that even a DCP was denied entry. However, it is not reported why the sergeant sought entry in the first place, or why the DCP did not immediately react.

After trying for 2 hours, the Kolkata police filed a complaint at 11:20 AM. Shortly afterwards at 11:30 AM, the ED informed Kolkata police about its presence at Jain’s residence. Interestingly, this information has vanished from the internet. Readers may still find it on Times of India, Kolkata edition, dt. 10.01.2026, Page 3, or other similar print editions. Also, ChatGPT remembers.

Strictly and legally, there is no statutory requirement of any central agency (ED / IT / CBI / NIA) to inform the local police before conducting a search / raid. That said, it is customary for a central agency to inform the local police for coordination or security. When this does not happen, it may raise to disputes regarding the identity of the ED officers, or create logistical hurdles, or simply lead to a confrontation between the two authorities, as it happened in the present case.

This is not the first time the ED has conducting raids without informing the local police. The agency found itself amid a similar controversy in 2022 when the then Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh and member of the Indian National Congress (INC / Congress), Bhupesh Baghel, objected to the ED’s raids occurring without informing the local police. In 2025, Baghel was raided and his son was arrested by the ED.

2.      Can the persons who are being raided leave the premises?

It is common practice for a raiding agency to restrict the movement of persons while conducting a raid. This is to prevent removal or destruction of evidence. However, the agency is not allowed to restrict the movement of persons or even their departure from the premises as that would amount to illegal detention or arrest. A raid is conducted on a premises, and persons may be allowed to enter or exit upon inspection.

In the present case, a controversy emerged when police personnel were not allowed to enter the premises during the raid and when the West Bengal Chief Minister entered the premises and exited with documents and digital devices. The ED has already filed a case before the Calcutta High Court that this act of the Chief Minister amounts to obstruction of an official investigation. However, the exact allegations and the defence are not known yet.

3.      Can the ED file a Writ Petition?

As of 11^th January, 2026, the ED has filed 2 writ petitions – (1) on 9^th January, before the Calcutta High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution against the State of West Bengal, the Chief Minister, senior Kolkata Police officials, and the CBI, and (2) on 10^th January, before the Supreme Court under Article 32 of the Constitution against the State of West Bengal, the Chief Minister, and senior Kolkata Police officials.

The Article 226 petition alleges an obstruction in an official investigation, removal of evidence, and seeks a CBI enquiry into the events that transpired during the raid. An Article 226 application is often made against a state actor / government machinery, in this case the state of West Bengal. The matter could not be heard amidst a chaotic courtroom on 9^th January and has been rescheduled for 14^th January. On this, the ED is considering requesting the Supreme Court to transfer the case to the Delhi High Court for a more conducive environment for adjudication. This would also be an insult to the state of West Bengal, who is the primary respondent in the ED’s petition, during an upcoming election.

The Article 32 petition again alleges interference and obstruction in an official investigation and seeks direction on how the investigation should proceed without such obstruction and the restoration of evidence. An Article 32 petition is often made where there is an imminent threat to fundamental rights, in this case, the right of an unobstructed investigation. The ED seeks to have the matter heard before the Supreme Court on 12^th January.

But the pertinent question here is, can the ED file a writ petition under Article 32 at all? A writ under this Article is normally filed by a person whose fundamental rights are threatened by the state. Does the ED, being an agency under the central government, have fundamental rights? This question was asked by Justice Oka of the Supreme Courtto the ED in April 2025 in a separate writ petition under Article 32. In that case, the ASG withdrew the petition and followed other legal recourses. So now that Justice Oka has retired, is the ED trying its luck again or is toying with another legal strategy by parallel proceedings before the High Court and the Supreme Court with similar petitions?

Curiously, no public discourse has yet addressed whether sanction would be required before any criminal process against ED officers, assuming acts were done in official discharge and protected under section 218 of the BNSS [197 of the CrPC].

4.      Can ED raids happen for long forlorn cases?

 The present case emanates from the ED ECIR no. ECIR/17/HIU/2020 dt. 28.11.2020 which in-turn comes from the CBI complaint no. RC0102020A0022 27.11.2020. Since then, the ED has made arrests and attachments as a part of its investigations, conducted by both the CBI and the ED.

There is nothing on record that shows that the ED had any fresh cause of action for conducting raids. However, it is the nature of investigation that they need to be unpredictable to be effective. The ED has alleged that I-PAC has been involved in hawala transfers from illegal coal mining which has been used for campaign expenses.

Legally, under the “continuing offence” doctrine, the ED has the right to initiate PMLA investigations that may have occurred anytime in the past, even before the PMLA was enacted. This has been widely discussed in the case of Nawab Malik. The ED had alleged that the money laundering in Malik’s case had happened in 1999, due to which he was arrested in 2022. The case is presently stayed by the Bombay High Court.

5.      What about the CCTV footage?

CCTV footage has been collected by the Kolkata police and Bidhannagar police from Pratik Jain’s residence and I-PAC’s office respectively. The ED has insisted in court to freeze the CCTV footage, showing its importance for both sides of the investigations. As of the date of the article, the footage has already been forwarded to forensic labs to find the identity of the ED officials in support of the local police investigation.

It is unclear why identification of individual ED officers is required at all, when the raid is admitted and official, unless the intent is to pursue personal criminal liability rather than institutional accountability.

This also reveals the difference in the approach of the state and the ED. The state is pursuing FIRs and police investigations, i.e. asserting territorial criminal jurisdiction. On the other hand, the ED is filing writs to assert legal supremacy and federal rights.

6.      Why is Mamata Banerjee blaming Amit Shah?

The Enforcement Directorate reports to the Ministry of Finance. The political head of that ministry is Nirmala Sitharaman, who works under the Prime Minister – Narendra Modi. However, the West Bengal Chief Minister and other TMC leaders chose to repeatedly name Amit Shah as the perpetrator of the ED action. Incidentally, Amit Shah has been visiting Bengal to organize campaign efforts for the upcoming assembly elections. So the West Bengal Chief Minister has chosen to attack a target closer to home and keep the fight regional – on a turf where she has greater command. Of course if Amit Shah is accused, Modi cannot be entirely uninvolved. But the Chief Minister has avoided naming Modi and instead chosen a target that is more likely to stick to the blame and lacks public appeal. This also allows Mamata Banerjee to keep options open for future parliamentary cooperation with the BJP. And of course, by not attacking Modi she has avoided being named an anti-national. This would be useful in future national elections.

Hari-Har

Paradox

Vishnu is symbolized as the preserver of the universe. Resting in the cosmic ocean (sheer sagar), he sleeps. The ferocious 100-headed Sheshnag is domesticated and serves as the bed. The goddess of all prosperity sits at Vishnu’s feet, symbolizing his power. Vishnu is the preserver. He symbolizes social structure. Yet, Vishnu takes no real family. Laxmi is more of a consort than a wife. Of course in the mortal avatars, Vishnu marries Laxmi. But Vishnu himself isn't depicted as a family man.

On the other hand, the hermit (vairagi) god, Shiv, is depicted as a family man with a complete household. He has a battery of household staff, residence, legitimate wife, children, daughters-in-law, rides etc. Shiv is represented as a household man, even though his role is that of a ascetic, yogi, and destroyer.

There is a natural dichotomy in this. Why would this be? Is there a narrative explanation? Shiv has been depicted as a family man to showcase that even a vairagi can be a household person. But this is not shown in Vishnu. What other explanations can be there?

Vishnu

Vishnu is the preserver of the cosmic order (dharma), which is beyond the narrow human family unit. If he is shown enmeshed in family, his scope would shrink. His domain is the whole universe. Why tie him to one household?

He doesn’t need children or a household, because Lakshmi herself represents fertility, prosperity, continuity. She is the generative force. Thus, the Vishnu and Lakshmi combination serves as a self-sufficient unit.

When Vishnu enters the world as Ram or Krishn, he takes wives, sons, in-laws, and through them demonstrates righteous conduct in family and society. The avatar “borrows” household responsibilities so that Vishnu himself can remain unbound.

Vishnu’s role is meta-social. He preserves structure, not by embodying it in his personal life, but by overseeing and restoring it through avatars.

Shiv

Shiv is depicted as a yogi, outside the world. Yet, he is at once the most complete family man. This is holds a deliberate lesson – detachment does not require renunciation. One can be rooted in the world, yet free from its boundations.

Unlike Lakshmi who is seen to serve Vishnu, Parvati is a partner – in tapasya, power, and household. Through her, Shiv is forced to engage in worldly life – have sons, fight demons, and care for devotees. He doesn’t preserve order like Vishnu; he challenges it, destroys arrogance, but at the same time nurtures his family.

Shiv’s paradox teaches a different ideal – the sage need not abandon family; the deepest yogi can still be husband and father.

Reconciliation

Vishnu worship historically was linked with kingship and order – kings wanted a god beyond petty family disputes. Shaiva traditions, often rooted in folk and tribal cultures, needed a god who was close to daily life – hence the family setting.

For householders, Shiv provides a relatable deity – even the greatest ascetic cooks for his kids, fights with his wife, solves domestic quarrels. For rulers and administrators, Vishnu provides the archetype – beyond family, concerned with law, order, and dharma.

Dharma is not one path but a balance.

This reversal is not accidental. Vishnu shows how to run the cosmos; Shiv shows how to run the home. The preserver is personally detached; the destroyer is personally entangled. Each battles the idea of detachment and renunciation. Where Vishnu teaches cosmic preservation without personal attachment, Shiv teaches personal attachment without loss of cosmic detachment. Each looks towards the other as an ideal to strive for. They are enthralled by each other and aspire to one another. In the process, they become one – Hari-Har.

Dr. Strange and the Knife’s Edge

"Look, if it´s you or someone you love who´s on that operating table, and it´s life or death, I´m the one you want holding the knife." – Stephen Strange (deleted scene from Multiverse of Madness)

Dr. Strange’s story across the MCU is not just of a man mastering magic, but of a man wrestling with the illusion of moral mastery, forever on the edge between savior and sinner. The audience first meets the powers of the sorcerer supreme is through the Ancient One. We see that the sorcerer supreme wields an immense amount of power, that obviously has the potential to corrupt. The Ancient One is not immune to this and is seen to draw her powers from the dark dimension. She is able to maintain her moral ground with no overreaches of power except that one aberration. But this shows the potential for corruption that the power holds. The Ancient One could have gone down a darker path, but she didn’t. Her student, Kaecilius, did.

Kaecilius going astray is proof that mystical power has scope for corruption. There is one guiding light that the Ancient One gives to Dr. Strange as her dying words, which become his moral compass.

“Arrogance and fear still keep you from learning the simplest and most significant lesson of all – It’s not about you.” – The Ancient One

This simple truth, the knowledge that the higher order of things is more important, becomes Strange’s guiding light, even though he continues to struggle with it.

"You still think there will be no consequences, Strange? No price to pay? We broke our rules. Just like her. The bill comes due. Always!" – Karl Mordo

At the end of the movie, Dr. Strange defeats Dormamu by meddling with the laws of nature. Mordo gives his ominous warning. This almost becomes a pattern with Strange where he continues to break the rules, and pays the price. This begs the question, is Strange working to fulfil his duties to the multiverse or for his own glorification?

In Infinity War, Strange makes several key choices. Firstly he is upfront about willing to sacrifice his companions, Tony Stark and Peter Parker, in favour of an infinity stone. However, once having gone through alternate futures, Strange makes the morally ambiguous choice to sacrifice the stone, himself, and half the universe to save Tony Stark. This one decision, would come to haunt him later.

In No Way Home, Strange again makes the choice of meddling with the memories of the entire world to fulfil the whims of a boy. By doing so, Strange literally messes with free will and chooses to play God, taking decisions for the entire world upon himself. In the wake the fallout from that decision, Strange is willing to send back the multiversal visitors to their own universe which would mean their inevitable deaths, without offering them a chance at redemption – a point where he disagreed with Spiderman. Dr. Strange’s reasoning being that the order of the multiverse must be preserved to prevent incursions and a multiversal collapse, i.e. the greater good. History is witness that when a single man takes it upon himself to sacrifice others for the greater good, that’s where morality starts to become dubious.

“You break the rules and become a hero. I do it and I become the enemy. That doesn't seem fair.” – Wanda Maximoff

Arrogance was already a problem with Strange. It was a tool when he was a doctor. It was what made him drive recklessly on a cliff. Like the demon Raavan from Hindu scriptures, Strange was a perfect human specimen capable of playing God – extremely learned and capable. But his arrogance had potential to lead him astray.

This pattern of meddling with the universe continues in Your Friendly Neighbourhood Spiderman where Strange enters a new universe to fight a symbiote, only to create a bootstrap paradox that ends up creating the symbiote in the first place.

Next we are shown the alternate paths Strange might have taken through the multiverse. In What If we first meet an alternate version of Strange where Christine Palmer dies instead of him. This sets Strange on a path where he ultimately becomes Strange Supreme. He consumes many powerful beings to increase his own power, to the point that he is  barely able to contain them. And they in-turn begin to control him. He is so driven to madness with his ambition that he ends up destroying the universe. For the first time, the audience witnesses what Strange could have been.

This idea is explored further in Multiverse of Madness. Nicodemus West confronts Strange with the question if the blip was the only way to save the world. Strange knows that there were other ways, and he had made a choice for the world.

“I guess what keeps me up at night is wondering did it have to happen that way? Was there any other path?” - Nicodemus West

There’s a deleted scene from Multiverse of Madness where Strange and Chritine are asked about a new surgical method. The scene recounts that Strange is willing to use risky techniques, till he holds the knife. He trusts no one else with the power. But this begs the question, should be much power be allowed in any hands? But this scene is deleted for being too similar to the opening scene with Defender Strange.

The movie opens with Defender Strange making a choice to take America Chavez’s powers for himself because Strange thinks that the kind of massive power America holds is not safe for a child and only Strange can be allowed to wield it safely. For this, he is willing to sacrifice America Chavez as well.

“This is the only way.” – Defender Strange

In the same movie, we also see the Strange from Earth-838 using the darkhold to defeat Thanos on his own. This again, breaks the rules of mysticism. But Strange takes it upon himself to break those rules for the greater good. He even accepts death as punishment from the Illuminati for his discretion.

Next, we meet Sinister Strange in the movie, who also made choices that led to the destruction of his universe, where he was left stranded. But Sinister Strange had reached beyond redemption and fought the original MCU Strange for Christine Palmer.

At the end of the movie, Dr. Strange does consider taking America’s powers like Defender Strange did. But it’s like the Ancient One’s advice comes back to him – “it is not about you”. And he encourages America to take on the Scarlett Witch on her own. Here, we see a character development for Strange. He let’s go of the knife and believes in someone else holding the power. But this may not be true for his variants.

Strange walks the same tightrope in every universe. One misstep – love, duty, ego – and he falls into darkness. Like the law he mirrors, Doctor Strange’s morality is both his shield and his trap – built to protect the world, yet destined to break under its own weight. Strange is the MCU’s purest utilitarian, willing to sacrifice the few for the many. But the question reverberates whether he should be the one holding the knife.