PremiumThe Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed a chargesheet in the Delhi Excise policy scam case. The chargesheet has been filed against seven accused in the Delhi Excise policy scam case, official said. The agency has kept the probe open, they said.
Along with two arrested businessmen, the charge sheet also names the head of a news channel, a liquor distributor from Delhi, a liquor-businessman from Hyderabad, and two excise department employees, they claimed.
Manish Sisodia, the deputy chief minister of Delhi who was mentioned in the CBI FIR, is not mentioned in the current charge sheet, which was submitted 60 days after the investigation was launched.
According to officials, the accused have been charged under IPC section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) and the Prevention of Corruption Act's provisions for bribery.
The investigation into other people's involvement, a larger conspiracy involving licensees, the money trail, cartelization, and a larger conspiracy in formulating and carrying out the contentious excise policy in the national capital that was later reversed has been kept open by the agency.
The central probe agency has got an alleged "close associate" of Sisodia -- Dinesh Arora -- to spill beans by turning approver in the case, they said.
Arora gave a statement to the magistrate as required by section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code, and in exchange for his assistance with the investigation, a special court pardoned him.
After filing a case against 15 people in August of this year, the CBI conducted searches at various locations.
Aam Aadmi Party, has vehemently denied the claim that the Delhi Government's decision to grant licences to liquor traders was influenced in favour of specific dealers who allegedly paid bribes for it.
Along with Sisodia, the Delhi government official in charge of excise, the CBI has named former excise commissioner Arava Gopi Krishna, former deputy excise commissioner Anand Kumar Tiwari, assistant excise commissioner Pankaj Bhatnagar, nine businessmen, and two companies as defendants in the case.
Sisodia and other accused public servants, according to the agency, recommended and made decisions regarding the Delhi Excise Policy 2021–22 without seeking the consent of the appropriate authority and with 'an intention to extend undue favours to the licensees post tender' the agency has claimed.
According to the agency, Sisodia's "close associates" Amit Arora, Dinesh Arora, and Arjun Pandey were "actively involved in managing and diverting the undue pecuniary advantage collected from liquor licensees" for the accused public servants.
The CBI claims that Sameer Mahendru of Indospirits gave ₹1 crore to Radha Industries, managed by Dinesh Arora.
(With agency inputs)