Hours after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday filed a money laundering case against Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and several others to probe allegations of alleged irregularities in the Delhi Excise Policy, top officials denied the move.
ANI news agency clarified that the report was published after Additional Director Enforcement Directorate Sonia Narang confirmed the registration of a money laundering case against Sisodia.
UPDATE: Top Enforcement Directorate official now denies ED’s case against Manish Sisodia. The earlier report was flashed after Additional Director Enforcement Directorate Sonia Narang confirmed to ANI about the opening of a money laundering case against Manish Sisodia. https://t.co/eT7JzbMunf
— ANI (@ANI) 23 August 2022
The report said the case was registered under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) after a First Information Report (FIR) was filed by the CBI and the evidence revealed proceeds of crime generated through changes in the excise policy. was.
AAP MP Sanjay Singh termed the change in stand ‘outrageous’ and urged the Prime Minister Narendra Modi Apologizing to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, he admitted that he had made up a fake case against Manish Sisodia. “This is just getting insulting. Modi ji, here is a suggestion, time is still to apologize to Arvind Kejriwal, admitting that you made a mistake by making a fake case against Manish Sisodia,” he said in a tweet in Hindi. Told.
Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia is also among the 15 persons and entities named in the FIR registered by the CBI in connection with the alleged irregularities in the implementation of the Delhi government’s Excise Policy 2021-22.
The FIR alleges Sisodia’s “close associates” – Amit Arora, director of Buddy Retail Pvt Ltd. Ltd. in Gurugram, Dinesh Arora and Arjun Pandey – “were actively involved in managing and diverting accused public servants of undue pecuniary gain collected from liquor licensees”.
Last week, the CBI raided 31 places, including the residence of Sisodia and the premises of some bureaucrats, including Excise Commissioner A Gopi Krishna, and two other officials and businessmen of the Excise Department.
The CBI raids came a month after Lt Governor Vinay Kumar Saxena recommended a probe into alleged violations by the agency and procedural lapses in the implementation of the policy, which came into force from November 17 last year.
After the searches, the Center suspended senior IAS officer A Gopi Krishna and DANICS officer Anand Kumar Tiwari in connection with the Delhi Liquor Policy case. Krishna was the Excise Commissioner in the Delhi government, while Anand Kumar was the Deputy Excise Commissioner. Both the officers were named in the FIR registered in the ongoing investigation by the CBI.
Sisodia has claimed that the cases against him were false. “I said that I know the truth about the CBI and ED cases against me as these are all false cases. I am an honest man. In fact, I am with Arvind Kejriwal team because I am a “Qattar Imandar” (hardcore honest) person. These fake cases are weak, and you cannot threaten me with them,” he said at a press conference in Ahmedabad during his two-day visit to Gujarat.
The deputy chief minister made a sensational claim saying that he was “offered the chief minister’s post” by the BJP and closed all matters if he left the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and joined the saffron outfit. Sisodia said he was surprised when someone came to him with a message that he had two proposals from the BJP. “The messenger said that one was that all the big cases registered against you by the CBI-ED will be withdrawn. The second offer was that I break the party and they will make you the chief minister.
“I gave him a clear political reply, saying that Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is my political mentor and I have learned politics from him. I have not entered politics to become CM or PM,” Sisodia said.
After Sisodia’s sensational claims, Kejriwal said that this means that the CBI-ED raids were an attempt to topple his government. In response to Sisodia’s tweet, Kejriwal said, “It means CBI and ED raids have nothing to do with liquor policy and corruption? This raid was done only to topple the AAP government in Delhi? Like they have done in other states.” Later, he tweeted: “Operation Lotus failed in Delhi.”
In his latest remarks, Kejriwal said that Sisodia can be arrested in two to three days.
Reacting to the ED investigation, AAP MP Sanjay Singh said that this step is bound to happen. “It was bound to happen. He had threatened Manish (Sisodia) that if he did not join BJP, an ED case would be made and he would also go to jail. Manish ji is ready to go to jail but is not ready to bow down.
In a veiled attack on the ED, AAP’s Abhinandi Dayal Mathur accused the BJP-led government of misusing the powers of the federal agency. “Something money can’t buy; There is ED for everything else,” she said.
The BJP hit back saying the claims made by Sisodia were an attempt to drop the corruption charges against Sisodia. BJP national spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia said the AAP leader will now “play the victim card and many other cards” to divert attention from the corruption allegations.
BJP MP from Northeast Delhi Manoj Tiwari asked the AAP leader to name the person who made the offer on behalf of the party. He also tweeted in Hindi to question these claims: “Manish’s phone was taken by CBI. That’s what he said. On whose phone did he get the message or call? Reveal that person’s name and hand over his phone to CBI.
Union minister Anurag Thakur alleged that AAP “has links with liquor mafia” and said Sisodia has failed to respond to the liquor scam in Delhi. He also denied Sisodia’s allegations and said, “Aam Aadmi Party is a party of liars and whatever Manish Sisodia has said about BJP is completely false. BJP did not offer him any.
Meanwhile, a Delhi court granted regular bail to AAP minister and cabinet minister Satyendar Jain’s wife Poonam Jain in a money laundering case. The ED had launched a money laundering probe against Satyendar Jain and others on the basis of a First Information Report (FIR) registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on August 24, 2017 under sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
(with inputs from PTI)
read the breaking news And today’s fresh news Here