The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday, March 7 will interrogate former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia in Tihar Jail as part of its money laundering probe into alleged irregularities in the Delhi excise policy case. The ED has taken the necessary permissions from the authorities concerned and a team is scheduled to arrive at the jail at 11 am.
There are possibilities that the ED might arrest Sisodia after the questioning. The ED will question him in connection with the alleged kickbacks of Rs 100 crore which the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) party/leaders allegedly received through hawala channels from a ‘south group’.
Sisodia was arrested by the CBI and later remanded to judicial custody by Rouse Avenue District Courts. His bail plea is also pending before the court, which will hear it on March 10. The ED, meanwhile, has filed two charge sheets, a main and a supplementary charge sheet, in the case and has made 11 arrests so far.
In another development in connection with the Delhi excise policy scam, the ED on Tuesday arrested Arun Pillai. This is the 11th arrest made by the ED in the case. Pillai was representing the South Group, which allegedly gave kickbacks of Rs 100 crore to AAP leaders that were allegedly used in the Goa elections.
The South Group was represented by Abhishek Boinpally, Arun Pillai and Buchi Babu. Boinpally facilitated the transfer of Rs 100 crore kickback in connivance and conspiracy with Vijay Nair (AAP’s communication in-charge) and his associate, Dinesh Arora. A land parcel worth Rs 2.25 crore in Vattinagulapalle, Hyderabad, owned by Pillai, was recently attached by the ED. Pillai will be produced before Rouse Avenue District Courts later on Tuesday. The ED is likely to seek two weeks custodial remand.
On March 2, liquor businessman Amandeep Dhal, the director of Brindco Sales Pvt Ltd, was arrested by the ED. His questioning led to the arrest of Pillai, said sources. Dhal allegedly played a major role in the formulation, conspiracy, and kickbacks paid by the south group. He had got a draft copy of the liquor policy before it was released. Dhal allegedly shared the draft copy with Buchi Babu. The ED has also alleged that he made arrangements for meetings between South Group persons and Vijay Nair.
The ED has claimed in the supplementary charge sheet that Vijay Nair, on behalf of leaders of the AAP, received kickbacks to the tune of Rs 100 crore from the South Group, whose prominent faces are Magunta Srinivasulu Reddy, Raghav Magunta, Sarath Reddy, and K Kavitha, the daughter of Telangana Chief Minister K, Chandrasekhar Rao.