ED raids in Delhi, Haryana, Hyderabad over excise case

According to officials aware of the matter, the raids took place at the house of a west Delhi-based businessman, a Haryana resident settled in outer Delhi and a businessman in Hyderabad.

The Enforcement Directorate(ED) on Friday conducted raids at 25 locations across Delhi, Haryana and Hyderabad in connection with its money laundering probe in the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy.

The ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) are conducting separate probes in the 2021-22 Delhi excise policy. (File)

According to officials aware of the matter, the raids took place at the house of a west Delhi-based businessman, a Haryana resident settled in outer Delhi and a businessman in Hyderabad. Officials said the Hyderabad businessman is a director in one of the companies run by accused Arun Ramachandra Pillai. Pillai, who has been named an accused in the CBI’s FIR, has not been arrested yet.

The ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) are conducting separate probes in the 2021-22 Delhi excise policy. While ED is probing allegations of money laundering in framing and implementing the Delhi excise policy, the CBI probe is focused on the irregularities during the framing of the policy because of which certain individuals benefitted. ED started the probe on the basis of the CBI’s FIR, which mentioned dubious financial transactions and bribes to government officials by accused persons, middlemen and others.

The CBI in their FIR (August 17, 2022) named deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia as accused along with 15 others. Sisodia and the AAP have denied the allegations.

On September 27, CBI arrested Vijay Nair, former CEO of Mumbai based event management company, Only Much Louder. Nair is also the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) communication strategist. Last week, CBI arrested Boinpally Abhishek Roy, also one of the directors in Pillai’s company.

ED had on September 29 arrested Sameer Mahendru, managing director of Delhi based Indospirit group.

ED has so far conducted at least 168 searches at different locations linked to liquor dealers, businessmen, and distilleries in Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh.

Delhi chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal had earlier criticized the raids by the ED and the CBI and accused the government of misusing the agencies for political reasons. “More than 500 raids have been conducted by CBI and ED by around 300 officers who are working round-the-block to find evidence against Manish Sisodia. They are unable to find any evidence because there is none. For political reasons, time and resources are being wasted,” he said on Twitter on October 7.

The 2021-22 excise policy was implemented on November 17, 2021 but within 9 months, the policy was scrapped. Delhi lieutenant governor, VK Saxena wrote to the CBI for a probe on the alleged flagged irregularities such as refund of Earnest Money Deposit in case one licensee, extending undue benefits to licensees by changing formula for calculation of rate of foreign liquor. CBI filed an FIR on August 17, 2022, in which it said that at least four private individuals were “actively involved in irregularities in framing and implementation” of the excise policy. The CBI had also alleged that these four individuals were in touch with the accused government officials, and were also involved in monetary transactions.