A court here on Thursday took cognizance of a charge sheet filed by the CBI against seven people in a case related to the alleged Delhi excise policy scam, saying “sufficient grounds have been found for proceeding further” against them.
The accused persons are Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) communications in-charge Vijay Nair, Hyderabad-based businessman Abhishek Boinpally, liquor businessman Sameer Mahendru, former Excise Department officials Kuldeep Singh and Narender Singh, and Mootha Goutam and Arun Ramchandra Pillai.
Out of the seven, Nair and Boinpally were arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) during the investigation and were later granted bail on November 14. However, they remain in jail in a money laundering case related to the alleged scam.
Special Judge M K Nagpal issued a production warrant against Nair and Boinpally for January 3 and summoned the other five to appear before the court the same day.
“After going through the contents of the charge sheet, statements of witnesses recorded and the oral and documentary evidence collected during the course of investigation, cognizance of the offences as disclosed therefrom is hereby taken and since sufficient grounds have been found for proceeding further in the matter against all the seven accused persons being sought to be prosecuted through this charge sheet, they all are directed to be summoned to face trial for the above said offences,” the judge said.
The CBI has alleged that Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, who has been named as an accused in the agency’s FIR, and other accused public servants recommended and took decisions pertaining to the Delhi Excise Policy, 2021-22, without the approval of the competent authority with “an intention to extend undue favours to the licensees post tender”.
Sisodia and 14 others were booked by the CBI for criminal conspiracy and corruption over alleged large-scale irregularities in the framing and implementation of excise policy. The case was registered on a complaint by Delhi Lt. Governor V K Saxena.
The CBI alleged in the charge sheet that Nair, Boinpally, Pillai, Arora, who has turned approver subsequently, and others entered into a criminal conspiracy to get undue benefits by circumventing provisions of the policy and to achieve the illegal objective of cartelization between liquor manufacturers, wholesalers and retail vendors.
It alleged that in pursuance of illegal objectives of the conspiracy, Boinpally arranged an amount of around Rs 20-30 crore at the behest of some liquor manufacturers from the southern part of the country and it was transferred by him through Arora to Nair and his associates using hawala channels.
This amount was the advance or upfront money paid by the liquor manufacturers to Nair for exercising his influence and using his position in the ruling party in Delhi to achieve the above illegal objective of cartelization.
The CBI charge sheet also said that as per the objectives of the above criminal conspiracy, the profit margin for wholesalers was intentionally kept as high as 12 per cent of the landed cost of IMFL (Indian Made Foreign Liquor). Six per cent of this profit margin was to be returned to Boinpally, who is stated to be a frontman of the liquor manufacturers from the South, against the above illegal amount of Rs 20-30 crore.
Another agreed way of returning the 6 per cent share was through credit notes to be issued by the wholesalers to the retail zone vendors controlled by these liquor manufacturers directly or indirectly.
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