Excise case: ED to question Sisodia in Tihar Jail; one more businessman arrested
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is expected to question and record the statement of former Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia on Tuesday as part of its money laundering probe into alleged irregularities in the excise policy scam, official sources said.
The federal probe agency also made a fresh arrest in this case as it took into custody Hyderabad-based liquor businessman Arun Ramchandra Pillai on Monday evening, they said. The ED investigators will reach the Tihar Jail around noon to record the statement of Sisodia under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The CBI had arrested Sisodia on February 26 in connection with alleged corruption in the formulation and implementation of the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy for 2021-22. He is lodged in judicial custody till March 20.
Also read: Excise policy case: Manish Sisodia sent to judicial custody till March 20
ED gets court’s nod
The ED obtained the court’s permission to question the 51-year-old AAP leader, who till recently was the deputy CM of Delhi, in the cell number 1 of the jail. The agency is expected to question him about the alleged change and destruction of mobile phones that were in his possession and the policy decisions and the timeline followed by him as the excise minister of Delhi. These charges were made by it in its supplementary complaints filed before the court.
The ED may invoke Section 19 of the PMLA that allows it to arrest people involved or accused in the case, if the investigation officer has “reasons to believe” that the person is “guilty” of the offence of money laundering. The CBI, during its custody of Sisodia, had confronted him with his former secretary C Arvind and then Excise commissioner Arava Gopi Krishna in connection with alleged manipulation of the excise policy.
Not mentioned as accused
Sisodia was not mentioned as accused in the chargesheet of the CBI filed in the case on November 25 last year. It is alleged that the Delhi government’s excise policy for 2021-22 to grant licences to liquor traders allowed cartelisation and favoured certain dealers, who had allegedly paid bribes for it, a charge strongly refuted by the AAP.
The policy was later scrapped and the Delhi LG recommended a CBI probe following which the ED lodged a case against the same accused under the PMLA. The ED has informed the court through its chargesheet that its probe found that at least 36 accused, including Sisodia “destroyed, used or changed” 170 mobile phones to conceal evidence of “kickbacks” worth thousands of crores of rupees in the alleged scam.
Also read: Manish Sisodia, Satyendar Jain quit as Delhi ministers
Kejriwal also named by ED
It had also named Sisodia’s boss and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in the second chargesheet filed in the case early this year, claiming that C Arvind, a DANICS officer who was earlier secretary to Sisodia, recorded his statement under the PMLA saying he was given the GoM report on the excise policy in the middle of March, 2021, when he was called by his boss (Sisodia) to the residence of Kejriwal.
In a related development, Arun Pillai was taken into custody under the criminal sections of the PMLA on Monday evening following a long session of questioning. Pillai is a partner in a company called Robin Distilleries LLP, whom the ED had said, represented the South Group, the alleged liquor cartel linked to Telangana CM K Chandrashekhar Rao’s MLC daughter K Kavitha and others. He is also linked to arrested liquor businessman Sameer Mahendru, his wife Geetika Mahendru and their company Indospirit Group. He will be produced before a local court where the ED will seek his further custody for interrogation, they said.
(With Agency inputs)
