Delhi Excise Policy Scam: Manish Sisodia moves Supreme Court for bail
Former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister and senior Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Manish Sisodia who is embroiled in the excise policy scam case moved Supreme Court on Thursday challenging the Delhi High Court order denying him bail in the cases registered against him by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
The Delhi High Court had, on July 3, denied bail to Sisodia in the ED case.
Prior to that, it had rejected Sisodia's bail plea in the CBI case in relation to the same scam.
It is alleged that officials of the Delhi government had connived to grant liquor licenses to certain traders in exchange for bribes.
The central agencies' case is that the excise policy was tweaked and the profit margins changed to benefit certain traders and kickbacks were received in exchange for the same.
The ED and the CBI registered cases in relation to the alleged scam after Delhi Lieutenant Governor (LG) VK Saxena recommended a CBI probe based on a report by the Delhi Chief Secretary. The report claimed that Sisodia violated statutory provisions and notified a policy that had significant financial implications.
Although Sisodia was not named in the CBI's chargesheet initially, the CBI filed an additional chargesheet later arraying him as an accused in the case.
It is Sisodia's stance that the policy and the changes made in it were approved by the LG and that CBI is now going after the policy decisions of an elected government.
According to Sisodia, no money has been traced to him and that the agencies are re-evaluating a liquor policy that was formulated by the elected government and approved by the Lieutenant Governor (LG) of Delhi.
In order denying bail to Sisodia in the ED case, the High Court had observed that the allegations against Sisodia are very serious and the matter has to be visited with a different approach because a deep rooted conspiracy involving huge loss of public funds has been alleged.
Justice Dinesh Kumar Sharma said that the excise policy case is a unique and peculiar case where it has been alleged that the Deputy Chief Minister framed a policy at the instance of some outsiders who were going to be its beneficiaries.
The appeal before the Supreme Court was filed through advocate Vivek Jain.
