Former deputy chief minister of Delhi, Manish Sisodia, has had his judicial custody extended until May 23 in a money laundering case related to an alleged excise scam. The Enforcement Directorate’s Special Public Prosecutor N K Matta submitted that the agency has filed a supplementary charge sheet against Sisodia, which will be considered on May 10. Sisodia was arrested by the CBI earlier in its ongoing investigation of a case related to alleged irregularities in the framing and implementation of the Delhi Excise Policy 2021-22. He is currently in judicial custody in both cases. The court had earlier dismissed Sisodia’s bail plea.
The excise policy case has been described by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal as a “desperate attempt by the BJP to malign an honest party like the AAP”. Kejriwal’s remarks were made after a Delhi court granted bail to two accused in a money laundering case registered by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in relation to alleged irregularities in the formulation and implementation of the now-scrapped Delhi Excise Policy 2021-22. The court said the evidence against the accused, Rajesh Joshi and Gautam Malhotra, was not sufficient for the case against them to be considered prima facie “genuine”. In a tweet, Kejriwal said, “The whole liquor scam is false. We were saying it from the beginning. Now even courts have started saying it. It’s a desperate measure by BJP to malign an honest party like AAP”.
