The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has “completed” the probe against Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) with respect to the alleged irregularities in the framing and implementation of the now-scrapped Delhi excise police 2021-22, senior ED officials familiar with the development said on Sunday.
“With regards to Arvind Kejriwal and AAP, accused number 37 and 38, our investigation is complete.
Kejriwal and AAP have denied all the charges, and called then “political vendetta” by the Union government.
“They want to crush the AAP and Arvind Kejriwal.
Despite all this, they have not found a shred of evidence of corruption against AAP and Kejriwal,” AAP said in a statement.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has “completed” the probe against Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) with respect to the alleged irregularities in the framing and implementation of the now-scrapped Delhi excise police 2021-22, senior ED officials familiar with the development said on Sunday. Delhi chief minister and AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal (PTI)
The focus, the officials said, will now be to ascertain which properties can be attached equivalent to the proceeds of crime worth ₹1,100 crore identified by the financial crimes probe agency, along with an early trial.
So far, ED has attached assets worth only ₹244 crore in the case.
To be sure, the federal agency has not said that the investigation into the policy is complete — its investigation into the case has so far spanned 22 months, leading to 18 arrests, eight charge sheets against 40 accused, and over four dozen raids.
“With regards to Arvind Kejriwal and AAP, accused number 37 and 38, our investigation is complete. The court has taken cognisance of all eight charge sheets filed by our team and most accused persons have been refused bail. We are now in the process of tracing the balance proceeds of crime and attaching them,” said an officer, who did not wish to be named.
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In the last one-and-a-half years, the federal agency has extensively availed the services of solicitor general Tushar Mehta, additional solicitor general SV Raju and multiple special public prosecutors against a battery of lawyers such as Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Dayan Krishnan, and Mohit Mathur, who appeared for Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, Sanjay Singh, to defend its charges.
“We will now push for a faster trial in the case considering there are 40 accused, hundreds of witnesses and documentary evidence in thousands and thousands of pages,” said a second officer, who also requested anonymity.
The agency has called Kejriwal the “kingpin” of the excise policy-related irregularities and has primarily used statements of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) MP from Ongole, Magunta Sreenivasulu Reddy, his son Raghav Magunta and businessman P Sarath Reddy to indict the CM.
Kejriwal and AAP have denied all the charges, and called then “political vendetta” by the Union government.
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The CM was arrested on March 21. The Supreme Court on Friday granted him interim bail in the ED case, but he continues to be lodged inside Tihar prison in the parallel Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe in the matter.
ED has claimed in its charge sheet filed on May 17 against Kejriwal and AAP that the CM, his then deputy Manish Sisodia and former media in-charge of the party, Vijay Nair, had asked for “additional” money “over and above” ₹100 crore kickbacks for their election funding in Goa and Punjab.
The federal agency had also alleged that Vinod Chauhan, a “close associate” of Kejriwal, handled the transfer of ₹25.5 crore bribe money for AAP from Delhi to Goa as well as managed postings of officers in the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) through the CM.
The AAP, meanwhile, said that the development “exposed” the motive of the Union government.
“They want to crush the AAP and Arvind Kejriwal. The central government’s investigating agencies have been probing the so-called liquor scam for two years, harassing 500 people by making them witnesses, and conducting more than 250 raids at multiple locations. Despite all this, they have not found a shred of evidence of corruption against AAP and Kejriwal,” AAP said in a statement. AAP claimed the Centre intended to attach the bank accounts of AAP so that they can paralyse the operations of the party. “The people of the country are keenly watching these atrocities and they will respond in the elections,” the party added.
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The Delhi BJP said that with his pleas for temporary relief, Kejriwal is obstructing the completion of trial. “We challenge Kejriwal who claims innocence to allow daily time bound trials. Once summary trial happens the conviction of Kejriwal and other leaders will happen in few weeks,” said Praveen Shankar Kapor, Delhi BJP spokesperson.
The Delhi government’s 2021-22 excise policy aimed to revitalise the city’s flagging liquor business. It aimed to replace a sales-volume-based regime with a license fee one for the traders and promised swankier stores, free of the infamous metal grilles, ultimately giving customers a better buying experience. The policy also introduced discounts and offers on the purchase of liquor, a first for Delhi.
The plan, however, came to an abrupt end, with Delhi’s lieutenant governor VK Saxena recommending a probe into alleged irregularities in the regime. This ultimately resulted in the policy being scrapped prematurely and being replaced by the 2020-21 regime, with AAP alleging that Saxena’s predecessor sabotaged the move with a few last-minute changes that resulted in lower-than-expected revenues.
