New DelhiAam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA Saurabh Bhardwaj on Sunday claimed that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has summoned Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia for questioning in the alleged Excise Policy corruption case.
He also tried to draw parallels between the CBI calling Sisodia with the upcoming Gujarat elections.
According to Bhardwaj, the Bharatiya Janata Party is scared of the AAP in Gujarat as it is taking on them.
“The CBI has summoned Manish Sisodia and will arrest him tomorrow. It is alleged that a huge scam of Rs 10,000 crore has taken place and for this CBI and ED (Enforcement Directorate) have conducted raids at at least 500 places so far. The CBI raided Sisodia’s residence for 14 hours, but found nothing.
“It is directly related to Gujarat elections as AAP competes with the BJP there and hence is scared. Manish Sisodia will be arrested for stopping their programs but AAP will be stronger.
Bhardwaj further mentioned that he is confident about Sisodia’s arrest as the same practice has happened in the past when AAP leaders were called for questioning and then arrested.
Expressing confidence over AAP’s victory in Gujarat, the senior AAP leader said the party would emerge “strong” with the increasing number of arrests.
“If we were afraid, we would have kept quiet. Our graph in Gujarat will increase with the increase in the number of arrests, our graph will increase as the repression of the BJP increases.
Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia was summoned by the CBI today and will visit the central agency’s headquarters on Monday, he confirmed in his tweet.
He said in a tweet, “I will go and fully cooperate with CBI as it has called me to headquarters tomorrow morning at 11 am after 14 hours of raiding my house and searching bank account and even my village ” In Hindi.
In August, enforcement agencies conducted searches at several other places, including the official residence of Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, in connection with alleged corruption in the implementation of Delhi’s excise policy.
Sisodia, who is in charge of the excise department, is under investigation for alleged willful and gross procedural lapses, which provided undue advantage to the tender process for liquor licensees for the year 2021-22.
Sisodia is believed to have executed the decisions in violation of the statutory provisions of the excise policy, which could have huge financial implications. Sources had earlier claimed that such “undue financial favors” to liquor licensees after the deadline for award of tenders caused huge losses to the exchequer.
The excise policy was passed in the Delhi cabinet led by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in 2021 amid the deadly delta Covid-19 pandemic.
In an FIR lodged by the CBI in August, a case was registered against Sisodia and 15 others, including the then Excise Commissioner Arva Gopi Krishna, Deputy Commissioner Anand Tiwari and Assistant Commissioner Pankaj Bhatnagar.
The other accused are Manoj Rai, a former employee of Pernod Ricard; Amandeep Dhal, Director, Brindco Sales; Amit Arora and Dinesh Arora, directors of Buddy Retail; The authorized signatories of Mahadev Liquor are Sunny Marwah, Arun Ramchandra Pillai and Arjun Pandey.
The ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had alleged that irregularities were committed while revising the excise policy, undue advantage was given to license holders, license fee was waived or reduced and the L-1 license was issued to the competent authority. was extended without Approval. Beneficiaries passed “illegal” benefits to the accused officials and made false entries in their books of account to evade detection.
As alleged, the Excise Department had decided to refund the earnest money amounting to around Rs 30 crore to a successful tenderer against the prescribed norms. Even though there was no enabling provision, exemption on tender license fee was allowed from December 28, 2021 to January 27, 2022, due to COVID-19.
Following the recommendation of Delhi Lieutenant Governor Vinay Kumar Saxena, on a reference to the Union Home Ministry, the FIR said that it allegedly caused a loss of Rs 144.36 crore to the exchequer. (ANI)
This report is automatically generated from ANI news service. ThePrint assumes no responsibility for its contents.
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