CBI issues summons to some accused in Delhi excise policy 'corruption' case

The CBI has summoned for questioning on Saturday some of the accused in the corruption case related to the implementation of the Delhi Excise Policy officials saidThe agency is examining the documents seized during raids at 31 places including the residence of Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia the officials said on SaturdayThey said once the process of examining the documents and electronic gadgets as well as the bank transactions is completed summonses will be issued to other accusedA CBI FIR which was registered before a special court on Wednesday has also been shared with the Enforcement Directorate a financial probe agency which will look into the allegations of money launderingThe agency on Friday carried out searches at 31 places which included premises related to Sisodia as well as some bureaucrats and businessmenThe AAP condemned the raids with Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal claiming the agency has been asked from above to harass its leaders The BJP asked the Delhi government to come out clean on its excise policyThe CBI FIR which was registered before a special court on Wednesday has also been shared with the Enforcement Directorate a financial probe agency which will look into the allegations of money launderingAlso Read Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodia among 15 persons named in CBI FIR on excise policyUnder the CBI probe are at least two payments in crores allegedly made to close associates of Sisodia by Sameer Mahendru the owner of Indospirits who was one of the liquor traders actively involved in alleged irregularities in the framing and implementation of the excise policyThe FIR alleged Sisodias close associates Amit Arora director of Buddy Retail Pvt Limited in Gurugram Dinesh Arora and Arjun Pandey were actively involved in managing and diverting the undue pecuniary advantage collected from liquor licensees to the accused public servantsThe search operations on Friday continued for nearly 15 hours with the CBI team leaving Sisodias residence at around 11 pmThe searches at the AAP leaders home the residence of IAS officer and former excise commissioner Arava Gopi Krishna and 29 other places took place after the CBI registered an FIR for alleged corruption and bribery in formulation and execution of the Delhi Excise Policy brought out last November officials saidThe policy was withdrawn in July this year after Delhi Lt Governor VK Saxena called for a CBI probeThe FIR on August 17 was based on a reference from the Lieutenant Governors office routed through the Union Home MinistryThe CBI has invoked IPC section related to criminal conspiracy and provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act in its FIR filed against 15 persons Sisodia public servants including Krishna former Deputy Excise Commissioner Anand Tiwari and assistant excise commissioner Pankaj Bhatnagar nine businessmen and two companies Speaking to reporters after the raid Sisodia had said on Friday The CBI team reached in the morning and searched the whole house My family and myself extended them full cooperation They seized my computer and mobile phone They also took away some filesHe alleged that the Centre was misusing the agency to stop the Arvind Kejriwal government from doing good work in DelhiAlso Read CBI raids more than 10 places in Delhi including Manish Sisodias house in excise policy caseThe CBI which registered an FIR in a special court here on Wednesday began its raids from 8 am in seven statesSisodia immediately tweeted about the arrival of the sleuths at his home and welcomed the moveThe search operation expanded to 31 locations in Delhi Gurugram Chandigarh Mumbai Hyderabad Lucknow Bengaluru which led to the recovery of incriminating documents articles digital records etc the officials had saidThe damaging allegations in the FIR based on a source information state that Sisodia and the accused public servants took decisions pertaining to the excise policy 202122 without the approval of competent authority with an intention to extend undue favours to the licencees post tenderIt was alleged that irregularities were committed including in modifications in Excise Policy extending undue favours to the licencees waiverreduction in licence fee extension of L1 licence without approval etc the CBIs spokesperson said in a statement on FridayThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever