Manish Sisodia

"Frightened by the heat of the investigation, Kejriwal has played a new trick. If the resignations of Sisodia and Jain came on moral grounds, they should have come long ago. But Kejriwal has made them resign now after they beaome completely infamous," Sachdeva said.

A source in the CBI said that on Tuesday, the agency sleuths asked Sisodia about the deleted files and documents which they have now retrieved from his computer. "Dinesh Arora and some IAS officers will be confronted with Sisodia. They had recorded their statement against Sisodia," the source said.

Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, representing Sisodia, mentioned the plea for urgent hearing before a bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) D.Y. Chandrachud. Initially, the Chief Justice told Singhvi that he can move before the high court. But the senior advocate insisted on an urgent hearing. The CJI then said that the apex court will hear the matter at 3.50 p.m.

While the Delhi unit of the party welcomed the CBI action, veteran leader Jairam Ramesh on Monday night flayed it and termed all the probe agencies "harassment tools" of the BJP-led Central government, thus bringing forth the underlying difference. Apparently, Delhi Congress leader Sandeep Dikshit has sought time from the Lieutenant Governor to attack the AAP over the issue.

Addressing the media here, Majithia said: "The actors and directors of the Punjab excise policy are the same as in case of Delhi. As in the case of Delhi, the CBI should probe the role of senior officers and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) politicians who had colluded to give huge benefits to select liquor manufacturers like Deep Malhotra at the cost of the state exchequer.

The agency arrested Sisodia on Sunday after eight hours of questioning.  In a major setback to the Aam Aadmi Party, a Delhi court on Monday sent arrested Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia to five days Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) custody in connection with the now-scrapped liquor policy case.

Terming the situation a sign of Emergency, AAP leaders said that the Centre is doing the same thing that former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi did during the 1975 Emergency. Accusing the Central government of wrongful detention, the AAP leaders alleged that while detention is for one or two hours, their leaders had been detained for almost 24 hours and it was illegal to do so.

In January, the CBI had seized the computer. On finding that some data was deleted, it sent the computer to the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) to retrieve it. Now, the forensic department has sent them a report along with retrieved data and files. The FSL report suggests that these files were shared through WhatsApp initially and then saved into the computer of Manish Sisodia.

Taking to Twitter, Kejriwal said: "I am told that most CBI officers were against Manish's arrest. All of them have huge respect for him and there is no evidence against him. But the political pressure to arrest him was so high that they had to obey their political masters." Meanwhile, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has launched nationwide protests against Sisodia's arrest.

Taking a jibe at the AAP leaders, he said: "It is being reiterated that the Education Minister has been arrested, is it shameful to call him the liquor minister?" Countering Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's allegations over Sisodia's arrest, the BJP MP said that Kejriwal and Sisodia could cheat humans but not God. He added that the misery caused to the people of Delhi.