Guwahati: Former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia who is currently serving a prison sentence in connection with the excise policy scam case, stated on Saturday that the Centre could lock him up but couldn’t make him lose his spirit.
“Sir, you can trouble me by putting me in jail. But can’t break my spirits. Even the British gave trouble to the freedom fighters, but their spirits did not break,” the AAP leader said in a tweet in Hindi.
The AAP leader was remanded to the Enforcement Directorate in the case on Friday by Delhi’s Rouse Avenue Court. For the sake of his “depth and thorough interrogation and confrontations,” the court remanded him into jail for a period of seven days, or until March 17.
In its request for Sisodia’s remand, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) claimed that the proactive destruction of evidence only supports the conclusion that Manish Sisodia made deliberate steps to conceal evidence of the money laundering offence.
Manish Sisodia’s senior attorney Dayan Krishnan argued against the ED’s request for Sisodia to be held in custody for 10 days at the hearing.
The agency claimed that it is asking for ten days of Sisodia’s detention in order to question him about his tactics and confront other people who have been summoned.
Sisodia had purchased SIM cards and cell phones in other people’s names, the ED said the court.
The excise policy was framed as part of a conspiracy. According to ED’s testimony in court, Vijay Nair and other conspirators drew out the Excise policy so wholesalers could make exceptional profit margins.
The court was informed by ED that the 10% wholesale profit margin to private firms was never brought up during the GoM meeting.
Sisodia was previously arrested by the ED on Thursday in connection with a money laundering case involving the excise policy.
He was taken into custody by the authorities while he was being held in Tihar Prison.
Sisodia was arrested for 14 days in judicial prison on March 6 after being detained by the CBI on February 26 in connection with the liquor policy case.
Earlier in the case, the ED conducted another arrest and detained Hyderabad-based businessman Arun Ramchandra Pillai.
The investigation team has also called K Kavitha, an MLC for the Bharatiya Rashtriya Samiti (BRS) and the daughter of Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao, to testify in the liquor policy case today.
The CBI previously arrested Sisodia as part of an inquiry into suspected irregularities in the formulation and application of the excise policy of the National Capital Region of Delhi (GNCTD). He was committed to judicial custody until March 20 by Delhi’s Rouse Avenue court.
In the midst of the deadly Delta Covid-19 pandemic in 2021, the excise policy was approved by the Delhi Government, which is led by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
According to the Delhi government, the policy was developed to ensure maximum revenue generation, end the sale of fake or untaxed alcohol in Delhi, as well as to enhance user experience.
The CBI had opened a case in relation to alleged corruption in the excise policy for 2021–2022. The AAP government subsequently scrapped the excise policy.
Sisodia was one of 15 people who were detained as part of a CBI-filed FIR. Excise officers, executives from alcohol companies, dealers, some unidentified state personnel, and private individuals were all arrested in the case.
It was claimed that irregularities were committed, such as changes to the Excise Policy, and that licence holders received improper favours, such as a waiver or discount on the licencing fee or an extension of the L-1 licence without permission.