Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and minister Satyendra Jain will be questioned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) today over the now-retracted Delhi liquor policy. The investigating agency will interrogate Jain in Tihar jail where he is lodged after being arrested three months back in a money laundering case, said sources close to ABP News.
Jain was arrested by the ED on May 30 under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) over alleged hawala transactions with a Kolkata-based firm.
Delhi's Rouse Avenue Court had on Thursday granted ED permission to question Jain. The interrogation will be done on three days, September 16, 22 and 23.
Judge Geetanjali Goel of Rouse Avenue Court passed the order permitting ED to quiz Jain inside the prison in connection with the cabinet approvals given by the AAP government for implementing the new liquor policy.
The ED case of money laundering in the excise policy stems from a CBI FIR in which Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and some bureaucrats have been named as accused. The excise policy has been rolled back now.
The CBI had conducted raids in the case on August 19, covering the Delhi residences of Sisodia (50), IAS officer and former Delhi excise commissioner Arava Gopi Krishna, and 19 other locations across seven states and Union territories.
Sisodia holds several portfolios in the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP government, including education and excise.
The ED is probing if alleged irregularities were done in the formulation and execution of the Delhi Excise Policy 2021-22 brought out in November last year.
The interrogation into the excise policy of AAP government began after Delhi Lt Governor V K Saxena recommended a CBI probe higlighting irregularities in the implementation of the policy. Eleven excise officials were also suspended by the governor in the matter.
Later, Deputy Chief Minister Sisodia too demanded a CBI probe into the alleged irregularities in the policy.
The CBI inquiry was recommended after a report by the Delhi chief secretary in July prima facie found violations of the GNCTD Act-1991, Transaction of Business Rules-1993, Delhi Excise Act-2009 and Delhi Excise Rules-2010, said officials, as reported by PTI.
(With PTI inputs)