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CBI summons Sisodia in excise policy probe
The Delhi deputy CM and senior AAP leader has been asked to appear at the CBI headquarters at 11am on Monday.
New Delhi The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has summoned Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia for questioning on Monday over alleged corruption in the formulation and implementation of the Delhi government’s now-withdrawn excise policy 2021-22, people familiar with the matter said on Sunday.
The probe agency has asked the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader to appear before it at its headquarters at 11am on Monday, they said.
Reacting to the summons, Sisodia said he will provide “full cooperation”. “CBI raid was conducted at my house for 14 hours, nothing came out. They searched my bank locker. Nothing came out of it. They did not find anything in my village. Now they have called me to CBI headquarters at 11am tomorrow. I will go and give my full cooperation. Satyameva Jayate,” he said in a tweet in Hindi.
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The agency has so far questioned a number of people, including Sameer Mahendru, the owner of Indospirit Group and Amit Arora, the director of Buddy Retail Private Limited in Gurugram, in its probe into the irregularities.
This is, however, the first summons for Sisodia.
“He will be interrogated about the tweaks in the policy, the role of private individuals and liquor wholesalers, distributors and manufacturers in the formulation of the policy,” one of the officials cited above said, asking not to be named.
The deputy chief minister has been named as Accused No. 1 in the first information report (FIR) filed on August 17 in the probe. Sixteen other people, including three former senior officers of the excise department, have been named as accused in the FIR, which was registered under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 477A (falsification of records), and Section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
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Following the registration of the FIR, the agency conducted searches at the premises of Sisodia and opened his locker at a bank in Ghaziabad on August 19.
According to CBI, Mahendru made a payment of ₹1 crore to Dinesh Arora, a close aide of Sisodia.
In the FIR, CBI has said that the excise department, which was under Sisodia, favoured certain licensees by tweaking rules, roped in liquor dealers to frame the policy, and extended undue benefits to them.
The agency has also arrested Vijay Nair, an AAP member and former CEO of Only Much Louder, an entertainment and event management company, and Hyderabad-based businessman Abhishek Boinpally, whose partner Arun Pillai has been named as an accused in the CBI FIR.
The AAP has denied all allegations linked to it.
Reacting to the summons on Sunday, the Aam Aadmi Party said it was a “ploy to arrest” Sisodia.
“CBI has summoned Manish Sisodia and will arrest him tomorrow. It has been alleged that a huge scam of ₹10,000 crore has taken place and for that CBI and ED (Enforcement Directorate) have raided at least 500 places so far. CBI raided Sisodia’s residence for 14 hours, but they could not find anything,” AAP MLA Saurabh Bhardwaj told reporters.
“This is directly linked with Gujarat elections as the AAP competes with the BJP there and hence the BJP is scared. Manish Sisodia will be arrested to stop his programmes but the AAP will only grow stronger,” he added.
AAP national convener and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said that the probe agencies will not find any incriminating material against his deputy.
“The jail and the gallows could not affect the determination of Bhagat Singh. This is the second freedom struggle. Manish and Satyendar Jain are today’s Bhagat Singh,” Kejriwal tweeted in Hindi.
Also Read | As AAP says Sisodia would be arrested tomorrow, Kejriwal invokes Bhagat Singh
Senior AAP leader and former Delhi health minister Jain is in judicial custody in an alleged disproportionate assets case. He was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on May 30.
The Delhi CM also hailed Sisodia for education reforms in the Capital.
“After 75 years, the country got an education minister who provided good education to the poor and gave them the hope for a bright future. The blessing of crores of poor are with you (Sisodia),” he said.
BJP spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia said: “If Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia are afraid of investigative agencies, then why did they get entangled in corruption? You even maintained that Satyendar Jain is honest, so why has he not got bail in these last five months. Sisodia may be a deputy chief minister but it will not be wrong to call him a collection agent for Kejriwal.”
While ED is probing allegations of money laundering, CBI’s probe is focused on the irregularities during the framing of the policy because of which certain individuals allegedly benefitted.
The 2021-22 excise policy was implemented on November 17, 2021 but within nine months, the policy was scrapped.
Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena has recommended the CBI probe into the alleged irregularities in the formulation and execution of the Delhi excise policy.
