The dramatic collapse of the liquor scam case against former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his associates by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is not just a serious blow to the credibility of the country’s premier investigative agency.

It also raises disturbing questions on the vulnerability of political opponents of the central government to dubious and sometimes completely fabricated charges by the CBI and other investigative agencies controlled by the latter.

Thirteen years after the Supreme Court described the CBI as a “caged parrot”, highlighting the agency's lack of independence and acquiescence to the government in power, the political weaponisation of criminal investigation by supposedly independent central agencies has now become a routine affair.

From landslide victories to incarceration

Four years is a long time in politics. It was the liquor scam that wrecked Kejriwal and his Aam Admi Party (AAP) in Delhi, dislodging him from power and incarcerating him along with the entire top leadership of his party in jail for several months during this period.

Branded in the liquor scam case launched by the CBI and hounded by the media as one more corrupt neta, the reputation of Kejriwal and his party, mainly built on a populist anti-corruption platform that had scored two successive landslide victories in the Indian capital, lay in tatters.

Today, the trial court has almost contemptuously thrown out the entire legal proceedings against the political leader and all his fellow accused. Ruling on the evidence produced by the CBI, the court declared that it “does not disclose even a........

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