Senior AAP leader Raghav Chadha on Friday claimed that the central probe agencies only have "malicious and fabricated stories" against former Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, who has been arrested in a money laundering case related to the Delhi excise policy, and have been asking him the same questions.
He also said that Enforcement Directorate (ED) officers have questioned Mr. Sisodia for only 15 hours during his 7-day remand.
Addressing a press conference, Mr. Chadha claimed the CBI and the ED don't have any evidence against Mr. Sisodia and he is behind bars as a result of BJP's "politics of revenge".
Also read: Delhi Government extends old Excise policy for six months
"The BJP is scared of AAP and has started politics of revenge. CBI and ED don't have any evidence against Manish Sisodia. They only have concocted stories against him. When court said that CBI took Sisodia in remand, interrogated him and did not find anything against him, they got ED to frame more false cases against him," Mr. Chadha alleged.
"The central agencies don't have any evidence against Manish Sisodia. They only have malicious and fabricated stories against him. The CBI and the ED asked same questions to Sisodia during his interrogation and purpose of doing this was to keep Sisodia behind the bars," he alleged.
The ED arrested Mr. Sisodia on March 9 in Tihar jail, where he was lodged in connection with a Central Bureau of Investigation case pertaining to alleged corruption in the formulation and implementation of the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy for 2021-22.
The CBI arrested Mr. Sisodia on February 26.
On Friday, a Delhi court extended Mr. Sisodia's ED custody for another five days, after the ED sought his custody for seven more days.
The ED told the court that crucial information had come up during Mr. Sisodia's custody and he had to be confronted with other accused persons. It said data from his email and mobile phone is also being forensically analysed.
Published - March 17, 2023 04:41 pm IST
