The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has provisionally attached assets worth ₹52.24 crore belonging to former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and others in the excise policy case, the agency said on July 7.
They include immovable assets worth ₹7.29 crore, involving two properties of Mr. Sisodia and his wife; Chariot Productions Media Private Limited and its owner, Rajesh Joshi; and land/flat of businessman Gautam Malhotra, it said.
Movable assets of Amandeep Singh Dhall’s Brindco Sales Private Limited (₹16.45 crore) and others, besides ₹11.49 lakh in Mr. Sisodia’s bank account, have also been attached under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
Slamming the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva said that AAP had no grounds to claim that there was no liquor scam now that the ED was attaching Mr. Sisodia’s properties.
‘Kejriwal should expel Sisodia’
Mr. Sachdeva said: “After today’s attachment of Manish Sisodia’s properties, his involvement in liquor scam stands established, therefore CM Kejriwal should expel him from the Aam Aadmi Party or else it would mean that liquor scam was blessed by Arvind Kejriwal himself.”
Arrested by the Central Bureau of Information (CBI) on February 26 following several rounds of questioning, Mr. Sisodia moved the Supreme Court on Thursday after the Delhi High Court had in May refused to grant him bail. He has also failed to obtain bail in the money-laundering case registered against him by the ED based on the CBI’s First Information Report.
Earlier attachment
The agency had earlier issued a provisional attachment order involving properties worth ₹76.54 crore linked to the then AAP communications in-charge Vijay Nair, businessmen Sameer Mahandru, Amit Arora, Arun Pillai and some others.
The value of total attachment in the case now stands at ₹128.78 crore and the alleged proceeds of crime at least ₹1,934 crore. The ED had so far arrested 12 accused persons and filed five chargesheets, it said.
The excise policy, which was scrapped by the Delhi government following the allegations of corruption, had extended an extraordinarily high 12% profit margin for wholesalers and almost 185% profit margin for the retailers. It is alleged that favours were extended through cartelisation.
