ED conducts raid across multiple cities in excise policy case
New Delhi [India], September 6 : The Enforcement Directorate (ED) conducts raids in connection with the Delhi excise policy case in Delhi and multiple cities in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Telangana, and Maharashtra.
Earlier also the enforcement agencies conducted searches on Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia's official residence besides at several places in connection with the alleged corruption in the implementation of Delhi's excise policy.
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The Aam Aadmi Party had been maintaining that the allegations of corruption labelled against them were politically motivated.
What is Delhi's Excise policy?
As per the reports by Delhi’s Chief Secretary established prima facie violations of GNCTD Act 1991, Transaction of Business Rules (ToBR) 1993, Delhi Excise Act 2009 and Delhi Excise Rules 2010.
The Chief Secretary's report indicated substantively of financial quid pro quo at the top political level and that the Delhi Excise Policy was implemented with the sole aim of benefitting private liquor barons for financial benefits to individuals at the highest rungs of the government leading up to Manish Sisodia.
Sisodia, who is in charge of the excise department, is under the scanner for alleged deliberate and gross procedural lapses which provided undue benefits to the tender process for liquor licenses for the year 2021-22.
Taking into account the Chief Secretary's report, Delhi's Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena had recommended a CBI investigation into the matter.
The excise policy was passed in chief minister Arvind Kejriwal-led Delhi Cabinet in the middle of the deadly Delta Covid-19 pandemic in 2021.
How Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal reacted ?
Kejriwal rubbished the allegations made against his deputy and termed the matter to be a false case and alleged that the central government could not bear to see the expansion of the Aam-Aadmi Party (AAP).
"Whole case is false. I know Sisodia for the past 22 years. He is honest. When he became minister, Delhi government schools were in poor condition. He worked day and night to bring them up to a level where a judge's child and a rickshaw driver's child sit together to study," Kejriwal had said.
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The central government, Kejriwal said, has levelled several allegations against the AAP as the has been growing since its win in Punjab.
"They cannot bear to see us rise to a national level and thus are resorting to such measures. But nothing will stop us," he had said.
-PTC News with ANI inputs
