Will soon make AAP accused: ED to HC
The Enforcement Directorate on Tuesday submitted in the Delhi High Court that it would be naming the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) as an accused in the Delhi liquor policy case. The investigating agency also stated that it would be filing a supplementary charge sheet in this regard soon.
The agency, which has thus far arrested 18 people in the case, including Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, former deputy CM Manish Sisodia, AAP MP Sanjay Singh and Bharat Rashtra Samithi leader K. Kavitha, announced its plan of action during the hearing of bail petitions filed by Sisodia.
So far ED, which is investigating the money laundering aspect of the liquor policy case, has accused the AAP government in Delhi of allowing exceedingly high commissions through the new policy to liquor companies and then taking half of their profits back by way of kickbacks. It had also alleged that Rs 100 crores was received by the party in commissions from the “South Group” of companies of which Rs 45 crore was used by it during the 2022 Goa Assembly elections.
The agency had also submitted in courts that Kejriwal was the “kingpin” of the scam. Last week, following the grant of interim bail to Kejriwal by the Supreme Court in view of the Lok Sabha elections, it was being expected that the ED might name him as an accused in the case. However, it did file a supplementary charge sheet in which Kavitha, who like Kejriwal was arrested in March this year, was named as an accused.
Kejriwal’s interim bail ends on June 1 and he has been directed by the apex court to surrender and go to jail the following day.
In the latest charge sheet, the ED has claimed that “K Kavitha orchestrated a deal with Arvind Kejriwal, then deputy chief minister and minister of excise Manish Sisodia, wherein she along with other members of the South Group paid them kickbacks through a string of intermediaries and middlemen.