New Delhi, 23 March 2024: Today we will talk from Delhi liquor scam to the arrest of Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party supremo Arvind Kejriwal.
What is Delhi’s liquor scam in which CM Arvind Kejriwal was arrested? Sisodia and Sanjay Singh are already in jail.
Finally, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has been arrested by ED in the alleged liquor scam of Delhi. Before the arrest, the ED team had reached Kejriwal’s house on Thursday evening and before the arrest, the ED team had interrogated Arvind Kejriwal, due to which Aam Aadmi Party workers had also expressed the fear of arrest of Arvind Kejriwal by ED.
However, before this, Delhi High Court had given a big blow to Kejriwal by giving its verdict of not granting him relief from arrest. On the other hand, if we talk about last week, then last week itself ED arrested former Telangana CM KCR’s daughter K. Kavita was also arrested. Let us tell you that former Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodia and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh are already in jail in the liquor scam case.
Why did Ed reach Kejriwal’s house??
A major reason for ED reaching Kejriwal’s house was that ED had so far issued nine summons to Delhi CM Kejriwal during the investigation of money laundering in the alleged scam in Delhi’s Excise Policy 2021-22. Even after issuing so many summons, Kejriwal did not appear before the ED. Due to which, on Thursday, the ED team reached Kejriwal’s house with the 10th summons. Kejriwal was apprehensive about his arrest by ED and hence, Kejriwal had filed an application in the Delhi High Court to avoid arrest, but without giving relief to Kejriwal, the High Court had rejected his application outright.
Kejriwal’s role in Delhi liquor scam
ED had sent the first summons to CM Kejriwal on November 2 last year. This summons was issued under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
Kejriwal’s name has appeared several times in the ED’s charge sheet, one allegation is that when the Excise Policy 2021-22 was being prepared, many accused related to this case were in contact with Kejriwal.
ED has claimed in one of its charge sheets that the agency has arrested Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) leader K. The statement of Kavita’s accountant Buchibabu was recorded, and according to his statement he told that K. There was a political understanding between Kavita, Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia. During this time K. Kavita had also met Vijay Nair in March 2021.
ED says that in the same case, another accused Dinesh Arora has also given a statement to ED that he had also met Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal at his residence. ED also says that there were several meetings between YSR Congress MP Manguta Srinivasulu Reddy and Kejriwal and Delhi CM Kejriwal had also welcomed Reddy’s entry into the liquor business of Delhi.
During intensive interrogation by ED, Buchibabu and accused Arun Pillai revealed that they were working closely with both Kejriwal and Sisodia on the excise policy. During this time, accused Vijay Nair had also arranged a conversation between Kejriwal and arrested accused Sameer Mahendru through video call.
Delhi liquor scam arrests
Now let’s talk about the three major arrests so far in the Delhi liquor scam.
The first name to be arrested in this case is that of Excise Minister Manish Sisodia.
- Manish Sisodia: Manish Sisodia is in jail since 26 February 2022. Let us tell you that when the new liquor policy was implemented in Delhi, the Excise Department was with Manish Sisodia. He is accused that being the Excise Minister, Sisodia had taken ‘arbitrary’ and ‘unilateral’ decisions, which caused loss to the government exchequer and benefited liquor traders.
- Sanjay Singh: Sanjay Singh: According to the chargesheet of SAI, accused Dinesh Arora had met Sanjay Singh. At the behest of Sanjay Singh, Arora raised funds for Delhi elections and handed over a check of Rs 32 crore to Sisodia. In return, Sanjay Singh resolved a case of Arora which was pending with the Excise Department. Let us tell you that Sanjay Singh is in jail since October 4 last year.
- K. Kavita: K. Kavita: On March 15 this year, ED arrested K. Kavita was arrested from Hyderabad, K. Regarding Kavita, ED claims that a bribe of Rs 100 crore was given by ‘South Group’ to Vijay Nair and others for the leaders of Aam Aadmi Party and K. Kavita was a part of this South group. This group includes politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen from the South. According to ED, K. Kavita had met accused Vijay Nair on 19-20 March 2021.
What is Delhi Excise Policy
If we talk about Delhi Excise Policy, this excise policy was implemented on 17 November 2021 by the Kejriwal government of Delhi for 2021-22. Under this new policy taken by Kejriwal, the liquor business was taken out of the hands of the government and the entire shops went into private hands.
However, the Delhi government claimed that the new liquor policy would end the mafia rule and increase the government’s revenue. However, this policy remained in controversies since its implementation and the uproar over it kept increasing and when the uproar increased, the government canceled it on 28 July 2022.
This alleged liquor scam was revealed in the report of the then Chief Secretary of Delhi Naresh Kumar on July 8, 2022. In this report, the then Chief Secretary of Delhi, Naresh Kumar, made serious allegations against many big leaders from Manish Sisodia to Aam Aadmi Party. Delhi LG VK Saxena recommended a CBI inquiry. After this, CBI registered the case on 17 August 2022. There were also allegations of misappropriation of money, hence ED also registered a case to investigate money laundering.
In his report, Chief Secretary Naresh Kumar had accused Manish Sisodia of wrongly preparing the liquor policy and said that Manish Sisodia also had the Excise Department and through this new policy, unfair benefits were given to the licensed liquor traders.
In this report prepared by the Chief Secretary, a major allegation was also made that license fees worth Rs 144.36 crore were arbitrarily waived off on the pretext of Covid. 30 crores were also returned to the licensees of the airport zone, whereas this amount was to be confiscated.
