From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has seized Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia’s mobile phone, laptop and files related to the excise policy scrapped on July 30, in 14 hours of search on Friday at his residence here.
It began the search after showing to Sisodia a search warrant issued earlier in the day by Special CBI Judge M K Nagpal in the Rouse Avenue Courts in the excise policy scam as per an FIR registered a day earlier on August 17. It raided both office and residence of Sisodia.Five close aides of Sisodia, who are among 15 named as accused in the case, were summoned to the CBI headquarters here on Saturday to record their statements. They were interrogated on the bribes of Rs 1 crore to Rs 4 crore taken from the liquor sellers who benefitted from defaulting payments under the excise policy.
Those interrogated on Saturday were Vijay Nair, Manoj Rai, Amandeep Dhal, Sameer Mahendru and Arjun Pandey. They were allegedly actively involved in the irregularities in the implementation of the excise policy of Delhi for the year 2021-22.
The FIR alleges that some of the L-1 licencees were issuing credit notes to the retail vendors to divert the funds as undue pecuniary advantage to the public servants, all of whom were interrogated on Saturday and told to produce all their bank passbooks on Monday.
FEARS ARREST IN 2-4 DAYS: Though he was not immediately arrested, Sisodia apprehends his arrest in the next 2-4 days. He told a press conference on Saturday: “Preparations are being made to send me to jail.” He defended the Delhi excise policy, asserting that it was implemented with complete transparency and there is no scam.
In reply to harrassment, he said: “I want to thank the CBI for not causing any inconvenience to my family. They are good officers but they have orders from above to carry out raids.”
He alleged that the Centre and the BJP want to stop Delhi’s health and education models from progressing. He said his Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will move forward as “the election of 2024 will be Kejriwal vs Modi.” Asked if he was talking of the Lok Sabha elections, he quipped: “Yes.”
The court sought a search list of the items that the probe agency wants to seize during the search warrant. The CBI said it is looking for documents, property papers and bunch of newspapers.
The CBI on Saturday claimed the recovery of incriminating documents, articles and digital records in the raids conducted on Friday at nearly 31 locations across the country including Delhi, Gurugram, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Lucknow and Bengaluru.
