Supreme Court: The three Judge Bench comprising of Sanjiv Khanna, Dipankar Datta and Prasanna B Varale has granted bail to Aam Aadmi Party’s Sanjay Singh in the Delhi Liquor Excise policy matter.
Singh was arrested on 04-10-2023 by the Directorate of Enforcement (‘ED’). Earlier, the Delhi High Court had dismissed his bail application filed under Section 439 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 (‘CrPC’) read with Sections 45 and 65 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (‘PMLA’). The Trial Court had dismissed his bail application on 22-12-2023.
The ED registered a case in relation to the predicate offence case registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (‘CBI’). An FIR was registered by the CBI or offences punishable under Section 120-B read with Section 447-A of the Penal Code, 1860 (‘IPC’) and Section 7 of Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, (‘PC Act’) on the basis of a complaint dated 20-07-2022 made by the Lieutenant Governor, GNCTD and the directions of competent authority conveyed by Director, Ministry of Home Affairs (‘MHA’), Government of India, through letter dated 22-07-2022 and also based on some sourced information, in relation to the irregularities committed in framing and implementation of excise policy of GNCTD for the year 2021-2022.
The chargesheet filed mentioned that while the excise policy of GNCTD was at the stage of formulation or drafting, a criminal conspiracy was hatched. Further, a huge amount of money was paid as kickbacks in advance to the public servants involved in the commission of alleged offences and in exchange for undue pecuniary benefits to the conspirators involved in the liquor trade. It was alleged that kickbacks of around Rs. 20-30 crores in advance were paid to accused Vijay Nair, Manish Sisodia and some other persons belonging to the AAP, and the other public servants involved in conspiracy by some persons in the liquor business from South India. It was alleged that a cartel was formed between liquor manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers, by violating provisions and the spirit of liquor policy, and all the conspirators had played an active role to achieve the illegal objectives of the said criminal conspiracy, result in huge losses to the Government exchequer and undue pecuniary benefits to the public servants and other accused involved in the said conspiracy.
Source: Press
Image Source: https://twitter.com/SanjayAzadSln/status/1683644831686623232/photo/1
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