CBI confiscates dubious documents from Sisodia residence, files FIR

New Delhi, 20 August 2022: After raiding Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia’s residence on Friday morning, CBI has added the charges of criminal conspiracy and provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act in its FIR against him and 14 other officials.

As per official sources, during CBI raid, it was found that no less than two transactions in crores were supposedly made to “close partners” of Sisodia by Sameer Mahendru, proprietor of Indospirits, who was one of the alcohol dealers effectively engaged with abnormalities in the outlining and execution of the excise policy.

The FIR asserted that Sisodia’s “close partner” Amit Arora, head of Buddy Retail Pvt. Restricted in Gurugram, Dinesh Arora and Arjun Pandey were “effectively engaged with overseeing and redirecting the excessive monetary benefit gathered from alcohol licensees” for the accused local officials.

Dinesh Arora from Radha Industries had allegedly got Rs 1 crore from Mahendru. Pandey, another partner of Sisodia, had once gathered money of about Rs 2-4 crore from Mahendru for the benefit of Vijay Nair, previous CEO of Only Much Louder, a diversion and occasion the board organization, the FIR has claimed.

While Manish Sisodia held a press conference after the raid and told, “the CBI team reached in the morning and searched the whole house. My family and I extended our full cooperation. They seized my computer and mobile phone. They also took away some files.”

Sisodia also accused the Centre of misusing its power to stop the Delhi government from “doing good work” and creating obstacles in the way of the development of the national capital. He also maintained that he was not involved in any wrongdoing or corruption activities and does not fear the Central Bureau of Investigation.
The probe which began in the morning was later extended to 31 areas- Delhi, Gurugram, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Bengaluru which prompted recovery of implicating archives, articles, computerized records and so forth, they said.

The charges in the FIR, in light of a “source data” express that accused officials including Sisodia took choices relating to the excise policy 2021-22 without the approval of the relevant authority with “an aim to stretch out unnecessary blessings to the licensees post tender”.

While the CBI’s spokesperson claimed that several inconsistencies were committed remembering for changes in Excise Policy, offering unnecessary benefits to the licensees, waiver/decrease in permit expense, expansion of L-1 permit without approval, among others.