New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday alleged that the Enforcement Directorate is used to poach MLAs and make and break governments after the ED filed a supplementary charge sheet in the scrapped excise policy case. "ED must have filed 5,000 chargesheets in this government's tenure. How many of them were punished? ED's cases are fake. They don't file cases to end corruption. ED is used to poach MLAs, and make and break governments. So, the ED charge sheet is pure fiction," Kejriwal alleged.
The Rouse Avenue court on Thursday also took cognizance of the ED's charge sheet. The court is also presently examining bail petitions of Vijay Nair, Abhishek Boinpally, P Sarath Reddy, Binoy Babu, Sameer Mahandru and others in the excise policy case. The court will hear the matter on February 23. The supplementary chargesheet names Vijay Nair, Sharath Reddy, Binoy Babu, Abhishek Boinapalli and Amit Arora.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) in its charge sheet stated that the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) investigation done so far has revealed that the Delhi Excise Policy, 2021-22 was created by the top leaders of AAP to continuously generate and channel illegal funds for themselves.
ED further states that the extent of involvement and abatement of the criminal activities by the leaders of the AAP covered in the subject, prosecution complaint further substantiates their design and scheme of the scam.
The policy promoted cartel formations through back door awarding an exorbitant wholesale profit margin of 12 per cent and a huge retail profit margin of 185 per cent and incentivised other illegal activities on account of criminal conspiracy by the top leaders of AAP to extract kickbacks from the businesses, stated the ED.
ED revealed that it is disclosed by C Arvind, DANICS, Secretary to Deputy CM Manish Sisodia, in his statement dated December 7, 2022, the draft GoM report was given to him in the mid March 2021 when C Arvind was called by Manish Sisodia to the residence of Arvind Kejriwal, CM (where Satyender Jain was also present).
The conspiracy of the GoM to give wholesale business to private entities and fix a 12 per cent margin (to get a 6 per cent kickback out from the same) is clear from the statement of C. Arvind wherein he disclosed that there was neither any discussion in the GoM meetings about giving wholesale to private entities nor fixing 12 per cent profit margin for them.
The ED charge sheet said that AAP's Vijay Nair, who orchestrated this entire scam, is not an ordinary worker of the AAP but a close associate of CM Arvind Kejriwal, and was closely interacting with the Deputy CM for the excise policy-related matters. (ANI)
