Senior AAP leader and former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia has been shifted to jail number 1 in Tihar Jail after a special CBI court sent him to 14-day judicial custody till March 20 in the alleged excise policy scam case.
This means Sisodia will spend Holi in jail where party colleague Satyendar Jain is also lodged in a money laundering case. The CBI said it did not require Sisodia’s custody at present. His regular bail plea hearing is expected to come up on March 10. The court has also allowed Sisodia to keep a copy of the Bhagavad Gita, a diary and pen to prison, in addition to spectacles and some prescribed medicines.
The court also directed prison authorities to consider his request to be kept in the Vipassana meditation cell.
The Congress, which has largely kept its distance from the arrest of Sisodia, however, said its stand on the misuse of Central agencies is clear that they are used against the Opposition in most of the cases. Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate told reporters that the Congress was “not at all confused” about its stance on Sisodia’s arrest and that its stand is clear. She also said the AAP does not utter a word when Central agencies act against other Opposition leaders, be it from those in Congress, those in Bihar or Maharashtra.
Sisodia was produced before special judge MK Nagpal earlier on Monday on the expiry of his seven-day CBI custody. During the hearing, the counsel for CBI submitted before the court that the investigative agency was not seeking his custody right now. The CBI accused the AAP supporters of “politicizing” the matter. The CBI claimed the witnesses yet to be confronted are “terrified” by conduct of the accused. “They are giving political colour to this. Entire arguments are running in the media even before the court order is passed,” the CBI counsel told the court.
The submission was contested by senior advocates Mohit Mathur and Siddharth Aggarwal, who said on behalf of Sisodia that the CBI “should put their house in order”. “From 10 in the morning, the CBI will be asking for judicial custody. That information I cannot give,” Mathur said, prompting the court to tell the CBI, “There must be something on your source.”
Meanwhile, the AAP said the CBI had no grounds to seek Sisodia’s further interrogation in the excise policy case. “Everyone knows that he likes to write. He has also written a book ‘Shiksha’ that is widely popular and is read by people to know about Delhi’s education revolution. He has been a practitioner of Vipassana and the court has asked the jail superintendent to consider his request. It is a good time to work on oneself,” Bharadwaj said. He said the court will hear Sisodia’s bail plea on March 10.