In a veiled attack on the BJP, former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, who is behind bars in connection with the excise policy scam case, on Saturday said the government can put him in jail but can’t break his spirits.
“Sir, you can trouble me by putting me in jail. But can’t break my spirits. Even the British gave trouble to the freedom fighters, but their spirits did not break,” the AAP leader said in a tweet in Hindi. Delhi’s Rouse Avenue Court on Friday sent the Aam Aadmi Party leader to the Enforcement Directorate remand till March 17 in the Excise policy case.
The Court said that he is being remanded to custody for a period of 7 days till March 17 for the purposes of his “detailed and extensive interrogation and confrontations”.
The act of pro-active destruction of evidence leads to only one inference that Manish Sisodia made conscious efforts to destroy evidence of the offence of money laundering, said Enforcement Directorate while seeking remand of Sisodia in connection with the Delhi excise policy case.
During the hearing, senior advocate Dayan Krishnan, appearing for Manish Sisodia, opposed the ED plea seeking Sisodia’s 10-day custody.
The agency said that it is seeking 10-day custody to interrogate Manish Sisodia to identify the modus operandi and to confront other persons who have been summoned.
The ED told the court that Manish Sisodia had purchased SIM cards and mobile phones in other people’s names.
There was a conspiracy behind framing the excise policy. The conspiracy was coordinated by Vijay Nair, along with others and the Excise policy was brought out for extraordinary profit margin for wholesalers, ED argued in the court.
ED told the court that the margin of 12 per cent of wholesale profit margin to private entities was never discussed in the GoM meeting.
Earlier, Sisodia was arrested on Thursday by ED in money laundering in connection with the excise policy case.
He was arrested during his judicial custody in Tihar Jail, where he was lodged.
Sisodia was arrested by the CBI in the liquor policy case on February 26 and was sent to 14-day judicial custody on March 6.
The ED also made another arrest in the case earlier, as it took Hyderabad-based businessman Arun Ramchandra Pillai into its custody.
The probe agency has also summoned Bharatiya Rashtriya Samiti (BRS) MLC and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao’s daughter K Kavitha for questioning in the liquor policy case today.
Sisodia was arrested by the CBI earlier in its ongoing investigation of a case related to alleged irregularities in the framing and implementation of the excise policy of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD). Delhi’s Rouse Avenue court sent him to judicial custody till March 20.