Excise policy scam: Delhi court fixes May 12 to consider CBI's supplementary charge sheet against Sisodia, others
Darpan News Desk IANS, 25 Apr, 2023 03:53 PM
New Delhi, April 25 (IANS) A special Delhi court fixed May 12 for consideration of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)'s supplementary charge sheet filed on Tuesday against former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and three others in connection with the now-scrapped excise policy.
The CBI told Judge M.K. Nagpal of the Rouse Avenue Court that the prosecution sanction against Sisodia has already been procured from the competent authorities.
The probe agency also informed the court that Hyderabad-based CA Butchi Babu Gorantla, Arjun Pandey, and Amandeep Singh Dhall were also mentioned as accused in the final report, which also included a list of witnesses and documents that were used as support.
The CBI has invoked IPC's Sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 201 (destruction of evidence/giving false information) and 420 (cheating) besides provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
Till now, the CBI has arrested five accused and charge sheeted 11 accused persons.
Earlier, the CBI had filed a charge sheet against Sameer Mahendru, Vijay Nair, Abhishek Boinpelly, Gautam Mutha, Arun Pillai, and excise officials Kuldeep and Narendra Singh.
Sources said that the CBI has alleged in the chargesheet that liquor businessman Dhall, the director of Brindco Sales Pvt Ltd, was in criminal conspiracy with accused Vijay Nair and the South Group for generating cash towards payment of 6 per cent commission out of the enhanced 12 per cent profit margin.
The CBI had arrested Sisodia on February 26 and it filed the charge sheet on the 58th day.
The agency said the probe is still going on to look into larger conspiracy and role of other accused in the case.The CBI also filed the electronic copy of the charge sheet in form of a compact disc (CD), which also contained all the documents filed with the charge sheet.
Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Tuesday said that he "personally" feels that alliance with the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in Punjab had cost the BJP heavily.
India on Tuesday recorded 1,68,063 new Covid cases, taking the total tally to 8,21,446. Although the fresh infections were 6.4 per cent less than Monday when the country logged 1,79,723, the weekly positivity rate has climbed to 8.85 per cent and the daily positivity rate has declined to 10.64 per cent. On the other hand, 4,461 Omicron cases were recorded from 28 states.
Delhi reported a 25 per cent surge in Covid-19 cases after recording 19,166 fresh cases. With this, the infection tally has climbed to 15,68,896. Meanwhile, the city has recorded 17 Covid deaths on the second consecutive day, pushing the death toll to 25,177.
On Monday, after a detailed hearing in the matter, a bench, headed by Chief Justice N.V. Ramana and comprising Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli, said the court will set up a committee headed by a retired top court judge to probe the PM's security breach and asked both the Centre and Punjab government to not move ahead with their respective inquiries into the matter.
Several Supreme Court advocates on Monday claimed to have received an international call with a recorded message asking the apex court not to help the Central government by taking up a case connected with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's security breach in Punjab last week.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Congress are projected to poll 40 per cent and 36 per cent votes in Punjab, respectively, as per the ABP-CVOTER Battle for the States survey. The 117-member Punjab Assembly will go to the polls on February 14, and the counting of votes will be taken up on March 10.
