Liquor case: CBI files final chargesheet against jailed Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which concluded its probe into the alleged Delhi Excise Policy scam, on Monday, filed its final chargesheet in the case against Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who is already in jail, and others, officials said.
The probe agency had earlier filed one main charge sheet and four supplementary ones in the case in which former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, BRS leader Telangana MLC K Kavitha, and others have also been charged, the media reported.
According to the chargesheet against Kavitha, liquor businessman Magunta Sreenivasalu Reddy (a TDP MP) met Kejriwal on March 16, 2021, in his office at the Delhi Secretariat, requesting support for his liquor business in the national capital by tweaking the Excise Policy 2021-22, which was then in the making.
Kejriwal assured support to Reddy and asked him to contact the accused K Kavitha as she was working with his (Kejriwal’s) team on the Excise Policy of Delhi, the CBI alleged.
The Delhi CM, in turn, allegedly told Reddy to provide funds to his political party, Aam Aadmi Party.
The CBI said that kickbacks of around Rs 90-100 crore were paid in advance to some politicians of the ruling AAP in Delhi and other public servants by some persons in the liquor business from South India through co-accused Vijay Nair, Abhishek Boinpally, and Dinesh Arora to tweak the Excise Policy for 2021-22.
According to the CBI, these kickbacks returned to them out of the profit margins of wholesalers holding L-1 licenses through different modes, like issuance of excess credit notes, bank transfers, and outstanding amounts left in accounts of the companies controlled, by some conspirators from the southern lobby.
A cartel was formed between three stakeholders of the said policy — liquor manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers — by violating provisions and against the spirit of the policy.
All the conspirators allegedly played active roles in achieving the illegal objectives of the said criminal conspiracy. It resulted in huge losses to the state exchequer and undue pecuniary benefits to the public servants and other accused involved in the conspiracy, the CBI alleged.
