Delhi Excise Policy Case: Court Allows Sisodia's 'Aide' Dinesh Arora To Turn Govt Approver, Says Report
The money laundering charge stems from a CBI FIR that named Sisodia as an offender among others.
A Delhi court on Wednesday allowed the Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) plea to make businessman Dinesh Arora, an alleged close aide of Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and an accused in the excise policy case, an approver, as reported by news agency PTI.
Delhi court allows businessman Dinesh Arora to turn approver in Excise Policy case: court sources
— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) November 16, 2022
Special Judge MK Nagpal issued the order allowing the exemption to Arora in the case. Arora had told the court during the hearing that he was ready to "true disclosure voluntarily". He expressed his desire to turn approver in the case.
The court had earlier accepted Arora's anticipatory bail application. The CBI did not oppose his plea.
The CBI, in its reply to the anticipatory bail application, had said that Arora has joined the investigation and has disclosed certain facts which are important for the investigation and thus "the CBI has no objection if the ancipatory bail is granted to the applicant by this court."
The CBI had in August registered a case in the alleged excise policy scam and issued Look Out Circulars (LOCs) against eight people as accused.
The accused include Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, the then Excise Commissioner A Gopi Krishna, Deputy Commissioner Anand Tiwari and Assistant Commissioner Pankaj Bhatnagar.
Earlier, on November 10, the Enforcement Directorate informed a PMLA court that the Delhi excise policy was "leaked” to some liquor manufacturers much before it was released. The agency further said that an investigation has found that three dozen VIPs, including Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodia, changed as many as 140 phones to destroy digital evidence.
This comes a day after the federal agency arrested two executives— Benoy Babu, Delhi regional head of French wine company Pernod Ricard, and P Sarath Chandra Reddy, whole-time director of Aurobindo Pharma Ltd.
Aurobindo Pharma informed the stock exchange that Reddy was "not in any way connected with the operations of Aurobindo Pharma Limited or its subsidiaries".
While seeking the remand of these two executives, ED said, “The Delhi govt/excise department under the influence of accused persons allowed the formation as well as operation of cartels even when enough information was available on public platforms to indicate cartelisation by most of the licence holders. This was done in exchange for bribes and kickbacks to Delhi excise officials and the members of the Delhi government.”
The agency said that several people it questioned, during the investigation, “have revealed that bribe of Rs 100 crore had been given in advance for undue benefits to select business groups to operate in the Delhi excise policy 2021-22.” It added that kickbacks and bribes were demanded and taken by the Delhi excise officials for opening retail shops in the national capital.
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