Liquor Scam: Delhi Court Reserves Verdict On Manish Sisodia’s Bail Plea In CBI Case

A Delhi Court reserved its decision on Friday on Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and former Deputy Delhi CM Manish Sisodia’s bail plea in the excise policy case.

Sisodia is now being held in judicial custody in the cases registered by the CBI and ED. Special Judge MK Nagpal will rule on Sisodia’s bail plea in the CBI case on March 31 at 4 p.m.

The court earlier heard Senior Advocates Dayan Krishnan and Mohit Mathur appearing for Sisodia. In the case, Special Public Prosecutor DP Singh represented the CBI.

Earlier this week, the CBI opposed Sisodia’s bail plea, claiming that granting him bail would jeopardise the investigation and that he has a “constant practise” of destroying evidence.

Senior Advocate Dayan Krishnan, who represented Sisodia, argued that he had met the conditions of the Section 41A CrPC notice. “Custodial interrogation requirements no longer survive. We’ve gotten past that,” he submitted.

Krishnan said that nothing exceptional has been presented by the CBI to warrant Sisodia’s continuing detention, and that nothing is on record to show that Sisodia could threaten the witnesses. Tomorrow at 10:30 a.m., Sisodia’s bail plea in the money laundering case will be heard.

The CBI arrested the AAP leader on February 26 following an eight-hour interrogation. He was named as an accused in the FIR. According to the investigation agency, there were alleged anomalies in the formulation and implementation of the excise policy for the fiscal year 2021-22.

According to the CBI, Sisodia was arrested because he gave evasive answers and refused to participate with the inquiry despite being confronted with evidence.

According to the CBI FIR, Sisodia and others were involved in “recommending and taking decisions” about the excise policy 2021-22 “without the approval of competent authority with the intention of extending undue favours to the licensee post tender.”

ED, on the other side, claims that the excise policy was imposed as part of a plot to offer some private corporations a 12% wholesale business profit. It has been stated that such a stipulation was not listed in the minutes of Group of Ministers meetings (GoM).

The agency further claimed that there was a plot orchestrated by Vijay Nair and others, in collaboration with South Group, to give distributors huge profit margins. According to the agency, Nair was operating on behalf of Delhi’s Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister.