‘Sisodia involved in largescale destruction of digital evidence’

ED files application before Delhi court over excise policy case

New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate on Friday claimed before a Delhi court that AAP leader and former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia was involved in “largescale destruction of digital evidence to impede investigation” into the Delhi excise policy case and had changed and destroyed 14 phones.

In its remand application, seeking an extension of Sisodia’s custody, the agency said the major recommendations that ultimately formed the basis for the excise policy 2021-22, including fixing of 12% profit margin for wholesalers, were not decided in the group of ministers (GoM) meetings and instead “imported from external sources”.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had arrested Sisodia on March 9 in the Tihar jail, where he was lodged in connection with a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) case about alleged corruption in the formulation and implementation of the now-scrapped policy. The CBI had arrested him on February 26.

The ED is probing money laundering charges against the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader.

The application before special judge M.K. Nagapal, who extended Sisodia’s custody by five days, also claimed that the investigation conducted so far indicated that Sisodia is “actually involved in the activity connected to the acquisition, possession and use of proceeds of crime” and “therefore guilty of the offence of money laundering”. 

In its application, the ED had sought a seven-day extension in Sisiodia’s custody. The agency alleged that Sisodia had withheld information which is in his “exclusive knowledge” and “extremely relevant to the investigation”. 

The facts which emerged after Sisodia’s custodial interrogation included he being “involved in largescale destruction of digital evidence to impede the investigation and to erase evidence”, the application said.

It alleged that during the one-year period of the liquor scam, Sisodia changed or destroyed 14 phones or IMEIs, of which only one phone could be recovered by the CBI and two were produced during interrogation by the ED.

Sisodia changed or destroyed most of these phones right from the day of the complaint by the Delhi lieutenant governor (LG) to the CBI, which was also reported by the media on July 22 last year, the application claimed.

When questioned about the reason for changing a phone on July 22 last year, Sisodia said the phone was damaged, but he was unable to answer regarding what he had done with the broken or damaged phone, it claimed.

“This conclusion of the destruction of mobile phones is based on the fact that these 11 mobile phones or IMEls were not recovered during intensive searches conducted by central investigative agencies or during interrogation,” the ED said.

Sisodia had also used phones purchased in the name of other people so that he had the excuse that the phones were not purchased by him and belonged to others, the application claimed.

“The largescale destruction of digital evidence was intentionally made to destroy evidence of his involvement in the offence of money laundering by destroying evidence of handling of proceeds of crime, money trail as well as involvement or connection in the process or activities connected with proceeds of crime for the commissioning of the offence of money laundering,” it  said.

The application alleged that the “pro-active destruction of evidence” led to the sole inference that Sisodia made “conscious efforts to destroy evidence of the offence of money laundering”. 

Claiming that the fixing of a 12% profit margin for wholesalers was made in collusion with a “south group”, the application said from the statements of various officials of the excise department and other material evidence it was found that the group of ministers (GoM) meetings were “only a sham and there was no discussion or decision making in these GoM meetings”.