A couple of weeks before the 2025 Delhi Assembly polls, Lt Governor of Delhi V K Saxena has allowed permission to the Enforcement Directorate to prosecute AAP Chief and former Chief Minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal for his role in the Excise Policy case.
On December 5, the Enforcement Directorate sought permission for sanction of prosecution against Arvind Kejriwal. The move comes after months of investigations into the Delhi government's excise policy, which has been at the center of controversy and allegations of corruption.
Meanwhile, the Delhi High Court, on Friday, extended time to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to respond to the petition filed by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia. The petition challenged the trial court's cognizance of the chargesheets in the Delhi excise policy case. The matter has been listed for hearing on February 5, before the bench of Justice Manoj Kumar Ohri.
Recently, the Delhi High Court had issued a notice on the plea of Aam Aadmi Party' leader Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia challenging the decision of the trial court to take cognizance of the chargesheet filed by the Enforcement Directorate against them in the alleged excise policy scam. Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia are currently out on bail in both the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) cases related to the now-scrapped excise policy.
According to the ED, the Excise Policy had been designed with such holes to favor AAP leaders and to encourage cartel formation. The ED has said AAP leaders were receiving kickbacks from liquor businesses in return for providing them with benefits including rebates, exemption of license fees, and easing in the Covid-19 lock-down period.
Besides all that, the ED has accused the "scam" involved awarding wholesale liquor distribution rights to private parties with a fixed 12 pc margin in lieu of a 6 pc kickback. Moreover, AAP leaders had also been accused of electoral malpractices and outcome manipulation in Punjab and Goa early in 2022.
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