he CBI on Tuesday filed a supplementary chargesheet against former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and others in the excise policy case. The agency has invoked IPC 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 201 and 420 besides provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act. It has also named Hyderabad-based CA Butchi Babu Gorantla, liquor trader Amandeep Singh Dhall and private person Arjun Pandey in the charge sheet.
Special Judge M K Nagpal fixed May 12 for considering the chargesheet after the CBI submitted that the prosecution sanction against Sisodia has already been procured from competent authorities. In a case of corruption, the investigation agency must file charge sheet against an accused within 60 days of arrest, else the person becomes eligible for default bail. The agency has also named Hyderabad-based CA Butchi Babu Gorantla, liquor trader Amandeep Singh Dhall and private person Arjun Pandey in the charge sheet. Out of the four accused, Sisodia and Dhall are currently in judicial custody. While Gorantla was granted bail in the matter on March 6, Pandey has not been arrested.
The CBI had arrested Sisodia on February 26 and it filed the chargesheet on the 58th day which may deny him the chance of getting default bail. The CBI probe so far shows that Sisodia was heading the GoM for formulating the excise policy and he was the chief architect of the conspiracy to tweak and manipulate the formulation and implementation of the excise policy under the influence of South Group, officials said.
The tweaking was allegedly done to facilitate monopolisation of wholesale and retail liquor trade for the suspects of ‘South Group’, a group of businessmen and politicians based in Hyderabad, for taking six per cent of the 12 per cent “windfall profit margin” for wholesalers, provided in the policy, in return for kickbacks, the agency has alleged.
The CBI had filed the last charge sheet on November 25, 2022.
Recently, while rejecting the bail petition of Sisodia, special judge Nagpal had noted that the then deputy chief minister played the “most important and vital role in the above criminal conspiracy” and he had been deeply involved in formulation as well as implementation of the said policy to ensure achievement of objectives of the said conspiracy.
“The payment of advance kickbacks of around Rs 90-100 crore was meant for him and his other colleagues in the GNCTD and Rs 20-30 crores out of the above are found to have been routed through the co-accused Vijay Nair, Abhishek Boinpally and approver Dinesh Arora and in turn, certain provisions of the excise policy were permitted to be tweaked and manipulated by the applicant to protect and preserve the interests of South liquor lobby and to ensure repayment of the kickbacks to the said lobby,” the judge said referring to the CBI probe.
