The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Sunday grilled Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for nearly nine hours in the excise policy case.
As Kejriwal’s quizzing was underway, his party held protests outside the agency’s office even as the AAP chief accused the CBI of acting at the behest of the BJP.
After his grilling, Kejriwal said the CBI asked him around 56 questions regarding the excise policy case and he answered them all.
“I want to say that the entire excise policy case is false. They do not have any evidence that the AAP is wrong. It’s a result of dirty politics,” he told reporters.
He was speaking to the media at his residence late at night after being released by the probe agency.
Thanking the CBI officials for their “hospitality”, the Delhi CM said, “They asked me questions in a friendly and harmonious manner. I answered all the questions asked by them.The CBI asked around 56 questions regarding the excise policy, including when and why the policy was started.”
In a statement released after Kejriwal’s questioning, the CBI said it recorded his statement in the case.
The CBI had registered a case against the then Deputy Chief Minister and Minister-In-charge of Excise, GNCT of Delhi and 14 others for investigation into the allegations of irregularities in framing and implementation of Excise Policy for the year 2021-22 and extending post tender benefits to private persons, it said.
After investigation, one charge-sheet has been filed by CBI on November 25, 2022 against CEO of a Mumbai based firm and six other accused persons and further investigation is being carried out, it further said.
The Chief Minister of Delhi, was issued a notice under Section 160 Cr.P.C for his examination in this case on April 16 and answering various questions related to the case. He joined the investigation today and his statement has been recorded under Section 161 of Criminal Procedure Code (Cr.P.C), it said.
“The statement will be verified and collated with the available evidence. Further investigation of this case is continuing,” the CBI added.
In a five-minute video message on Twitter before arriving at the heavily fortified headquarters of the Central Bureau of Investigation at around 11 AM, Kejriwal claimed that the BJP might have ordered the agency to arrest him.
However, his questioning for the day ended around 8 PM, officials said, adding, he is likely to be summoned again as per the requirements of the ongoing probe.
After arriving at the agency headquarters, Kejriwal was taken to the first-floor office of the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) of the CBI, which is probing the matter.
Senior officials of the agency remained ensconced at the agency headquarters here on Sunday to keep an eye on the development, a normal practice whenever a VIP is questioned at the state-of-the-art building, they said.
The agency had summoned Kejriwal on Friday last seeking his appearance as a witness before the investigation team to answer their queries on the inputs generated during the probe, the sources said.
The questioning revolved around the policy formulation process regarding the controversial excise policy, especially the “untraceable” file, which was earlier slated to be put before the Council of Ministers, the sources said.
The file containing opinions of the expert committee and public and legal opinions on it was not kept before the Council of Ministers and remains untraceable, the sources said.
They said Kejriwal was also quizzed on the statements of other accused, where they have indicated the manner in which policy was allegedly influenced to favour some liquor businessmen and the South liquor lobby, they said.
During the questioning session, Kejriwal was offered a lunch break but he chose not to go outside the CBI office, sources said.
Delhi Deputy Chief Minister and AAP leader Manish Sisodia was arrested on February 26 after nearly eight hours of questioning in the case with the agency dubbing his answers as unsatisfactory. He quit as Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi on February 28.
Kejriwal, who received solidarity messages from several Opposition leaders after being summoned by the agency, asserted that he would honestly answer questions posed by the CBI as he has nothing to hide.
“I have been summoned by the CBI today and I will give all the answers with honesty. These people are very powerful. They can send anyone to jail, it does not matter if that person has committed any crime or not,” Kejriwal said in his video message on Sunday before his questioning.\
“Since yesterday, all of their leaders are screaming at top of their voices that Kejriwal will be arrested and I think BJP has instructed the CBI also that Kejriwal should be arrested. If BJP has given an order, then who is CBI? The CBI is going to arrest me,” he said.
Before reaching the CBI office, Kejriwal visited Mahatma Gandhi’s memorial at Raj Ghat this morning and was accompanied by his Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and some Cabinet colleagues to the agency’s office.
Earlier, as Kejriwal’s questioning got underway, top AAP leaders, including Mann, Saurabh Bharadwaj, Atishi, Kailash Gahlot, Sandeep Pathak, Raghav Chadha and Sanjay Singh gathered near the CBI headquarters and raised slogans against the prime minister.
Several AAP leaders, including Punjab ministers and MLAs, alleged they were stopped from entering Delhi.
The ruling party in Punjab claimed that ministers Bram Shanker Jimpa, Balbir Singh and Harjot Singh Bains, and MLAs Dinesh Chadha and Kuljit Randhawa were among those stopped at the Singhu border.
The BJP accused Kejriwal of indulging in theatrics to divert attention from corruption and dared him to undergo a lie-detector test and said it was not the time for rhetoric but accountability.
BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra said on Sunday that investigation agencies such as CBI and ED work on the basis of facts, not emotions.
While Kejriwal was being questioned, several senior AAP leaders were “detained” by the Delhi Police during a sit-in at Archbishop Road against his summoning.
The detainees included Rajya Sabha MPs Sanjay Singh and Raghav Chadha, Delhi ministers Saurabh Bharadwaj, Atishi and Kailash Gahlot, AAP spokesperson Adil Ahmad Khan, AAP general secretary Pankaj Gupta and some ministers in the Punjab government.
Asked about the CBI action, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said the investigation agency wants to find out: “Who is the kingpin of the Delhi liquor scam? Did Manish Sisodia solely make this excise policy on his own, or someone else is also involved in this?” Patra also posed some questions to Kejriwal at the press conference in Bhubaneswar.
“The Delhi liquor policy was passed by the cabinet on your instructions at your residence and time and again you have claimed this Delhi excise policy will bring huge benefits to the State’s treasury, but instead a loss of Rs 3,000 crore was incurred and you had to withdraw the excise policy,” he said.
Security was stepped up at the CBI headquarters with the Delhi Police putting in place four rings of barricading. Over 1,000 security personnel, including from paramilitary forces, were deployed outside the CBI headquarters and Section 144 of the CrPC had also been imposed in the area to ensure no gathering of more than four persons took place, they said.