Aam Aadmi Party leader Manish Sisodia was released from jail on Friday, hours after he was granted bail by the Supreme Court in the Delhi liquor policy case. He had been in jail for nearly 17 months.

The former Delhi deputy chief minister was arrested in February 2023 by the Central Bureau of Investigation. The Enforcement Directorate arrested him in the same case in March 2023. He was in Delhi’s Tihar Jail.

“Ever since this order came in the morning, every fibre of my being feels indebted to Babasaheb [BR Ambedkar],” Sisodia told supporters gathered outside the jail.

“I am unable to understand how I will repay this debt,” he said. “Babasaheb had decided at that time that if a dictatorial government puts an innocent person in jail, the Constitution will protect him.”

Earlier in the day, a bench of Justices BR Gavai and KV Viswanathan granted him bail in the Enforcement Directorate and the Central Bureau of Investigation cases. The court observed that Sisodia had been deprived of the right to a speedy trial.

There was “not even a remotest possibility of trial being completed” considering 495 witnesses and thousands of documents spanning lakhs of pages, the bench said.

This was Sisodia’s third bail petition before the Supreme Court after a chargesheet was filed. The bench said that it would not ask the Opposition leader to go back to the trial court once again to seek bail.

“Liberty was given to revive the plea after filing of chargesheet,” the court said. “Now relegating Sisodia to trial court and then High Court will be like playing a game of snake and ladder. It will be travesty of justice to note that he has to be relegated to trial court again. Procedures cannot be made a mistress of justice.”

The Enforcement Directorate’s case is based on a first information report registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation alleging irregularities in the Delhi government’s now-scrapped liquor policy.

The agencies alleged that Delhi’s Aam Aadmi Party government modified the policy to ensure a 12% profit margin for wholesalers and a nearly 185% profit margin for retailers.

The Aam Aadmi Party on Friday welcomed the court’s decision.

“Manish Sisodia was kept in jail for 17 months in a case in which not even a single penny has been recovered till date,” the party said. “The aim of these investigation agencies of the central government is not to investigate but to put opposition leaders in jail.”

On the Supreme Court granting bail to Sisodia, Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav said that he hoped others, including Aam Aadmi Party chief and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, would also receive justice, the Hindustan Times reported.

Kejriwal is currently in jail after his arrest by the Central Bureau of Investigation in the liquor policy case.

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said that bail should have been granted to Sisodia sooner.

“In our system, it’s the rule – bail not jail,” Tharoor said, according to ANI. “He is coming out [of jail] after almost two years, it should have been done earlier.”