ED Attaches Assets Worth Rs 52 Crore In Delhi Liquor Policy Case

The attached assets include two properties of Manish Sisodia and his wife Seema Sisodia apart from bank deposits worth Rs 11.49 lakh.

The Enforcement Directorate Friday said it has attached two immovable assets of arrested AAP leader Manish Sisodia and his wife

New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday attached assets worth over Rs 52 crore in connection with the excise policy case, including assets worth Rs 81 lakh belonging to former Delhi deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, PTI reported.

Two immovable assets of arrested AAP leader Manish Sisodia and his wife apart from bank deposits worth Rs 11.49 lakh have been attached by the ED. The immovable assets include two flats worth Rs 5 lakh and Rs 65 lakh.

ED also attached properties of Amandeep Singh Dhall, Rajesh Joshi, Gautam Malhotra among other accused in connection with the excise case.

The ED action comes a day after it arrested Delhi businessman Dinesh Arora in connection with the case.

A land/flat of arrested accused Rajesh Joshi -- the director of Chariot Productions Media Pvt Ltd -- have been attached. ED also attached a land/flat of Gautam Malhotra, a Punjab-based liquor businessman.

The total attachment value is Rs 52.24 crore, the agency said in a statement.

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Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, in a tweet, said, "Prime Minister, when you did not find anything against Manish Sisodia, you started defaming him through ED. Your ED is running fake news on TV channels saying that assets worth Rs 52 crore of Manish Sisodia have been attached."

"In reality, the Rs 80 lakh worth of assets that have been attached belong to pre-2018 when the excise policy was not even framed," Kejriwal claimed, saying that those were declared assets.

Manish Sisodia was arrested by the ED in the Delhi excise policy case in March and he is currently in judicial custody. The case pertains to Delhi government's now-scrapped excise policy for 2021-22, to grant licences to liquor traders where the AAP allegedly favoured certain dealers who had paid bribes for it. The Aam Aadmi Party, however, has refuted the charge. The Delhi lieutenant governor recommended a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) investigation, after which the ED registered a case under the PMLA.

The ED case linked to the alleged liquor policy scam is separate from the one that is being probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation.