Liquor Policy Case: Delhi Court Reserves Order On Manish Sisodia’s Bail Plea In CBI FIR, Order Likely On March 31

A Delhi Court on Friday reserved order in Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and former Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi Manish Sisodia's bail plea in the case alleging corruption relating to excise policy for the year 2021-22.

Sisodia is currently under judicial custody in the cases registered by the CBI and ED.

Special Judge MK Nagpal will pronounce the order on March 31 at 4 PM in Sisodia's plea for bail in the CBI case. 

The court earlier heard Senior Advocates Dayan Krishnan and Mohit Mathur appearing for Sisodia. Special Public Prosecutor DP Singh represented CBI in the matter.

Earlier this week, CBI opposed Sisodia’s bail plea and submitted that granting bail to him will scuttle the investigation and that there has been a “constant practice” of destruction of evidence by him.

On the other hand, Senior Advocate Dayan Krishnan, representing Sisodia, submitted that he had complied with the requirements of Section 41A CrPC notice. "The requirements of custodial Interrogation no longer survives. We have passed that stage," he submitted.

Contending that nothing exceptional has been stated by CBI to warrant continued custody, Krishnan said nothing is on record to show that Sisodia could threaten the witnesses.

Sisodia’s bail plea in the money laundering case will be heard tomorrow at 10:30 AM.

The AAP leader was arrested by the CBI on February 26 after an interrogation of more than 8 hours. He was named as an accused in the FIR. It is the case of the probe agency that there were alleged irregularities in the framing and implementation of the excise policy for the year 2021-22.

The CBI alleged that Sisodia was arrested as he gave evasive replies and did not cooperate with the investigation despite being confronted with evidence.

The CBI FIR states that Sisodia and others were instrumental in “recommending and taking decisions” regarding the excise policy 2021-22 “without approval of competent authority with an intention to extend undue favours to the licensee post tender.”

On the other hand, ED has alleged that the excise policy was implemented as part of a conspiracy to give wholesale business profit of 12% to certain private companies. It has said that such a stipulation was not mentioned in the minutes of meetings of Group of Ministers (GoM).

The agency has also claimed that there was a conspiracy which was coordinated by Vijay Nair and other individuals along with South Group to give extraordinary profit margin to wholesalers. Nair was acting on behalf of the Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi, according to the agency.