The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday questioned Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia in connection with the excise policy case, in which he has been named as an accused along with 14 others.
After a visit to Mahatma Gandhi’s memorial Rajghat, Mr. Sisodia reached the CBI headquarters around 11.15 a.m. and presented himself before the investigating officer to record his statement. He was quizzed for about nine hours. It is learnt that two more persons had been summoned by the agency.
Stating that a completely false case had been made against him, Mr. Sisodia earlier took to Twitter to say: “They are preparing to arrest me by making a completely fake case against me. I was to go to Gujarat for election campaign in the coming days. These people are losing Gujarat badly. Their purpose is to stop me from going to Gujarat election campaign.”
“But my going to jail will not stop the Gujarat election campaign. Today every Gujarati has stood up. The child of Gujarat is now campaigning for good schools, hospitals, jobs, electricity. The coming elections in Gujarat will be a movement,” he said.
The agency has alleged that there were several irregularities in the excise policy modified and implemented under Mr. Sisodia. The then Excise Commissioner Arva Gopi Krishna, Deputy Commissioner Anand Tiwari, and Assistant Commissioner Pankaj Bhatnagar have also been arraigned.
The CBI had earlier arrested Vijay Nair, former chief executive officer of Mumbai-based Only Much Louder and AAP communication in-charge, as well as liquor businessman Abhishek Boinpally, a close associate of co-accused Arun Ramchandra Pillai.
Later at his residence, Mr. Sisodia told the media that during the questioning, he found that there was no scam in the excise policy and that it was all a conspiracy by the BJP to make its “Operation Lotus” in Delhi a success through unconstitutional abuse of the CBI. He alleged that unofficially he was asked to quit AAP and was also offered the Chief Minister post.
The First Information Report mentioned “several suspect financial transactions”, alleging that illegal gains were made and shared with the public servants concerned. It also said the Excise Department had allegedly decided to refund the Earnest Money Deposit of about ₹30 crore to a successful tenderer against the existing rules; and that an irregular waiver on tendered licence fee was allowed due to COVID-19 purportedly causing a loss of ₹144.36 crore to the exchequer.
Based on the CBI case, the Enforcement Directorate is conducting a money laundering probe and had arrested liquor businessman Sameer Mahendru, the managing director of Indospirit Group.
