The Rouse Avenue Court on Thursday granted the remand of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Member of Parliament (MP) Sanjay Singh to Enforcement Directorate (ED) custody till October 10 in a case pertaining to the now scrapped Delhi excise policy.
The ED had sought 10 days of custody from the court of Special Judge M.K. Nagpal who passed the order after hearing the Judge from both sides at length.
Special Counsel Zoheb Hossain who appeared for the ED submitted in the court that an estimated amount of ₹2 crores was exchanged at the residence of Mr. Singh in two trenches which has been confirmed to the ED by the businessman Dinesh Arora. He added that custody of Mr. Singh is needed by the investigative agency to trace the evidence.
Mr. Arora, earlier, had turned approved in the case registered by the ED.
Responding to the ED’s allegations, Senior Advocate Mohit Mathur who was appearing for Mr. Singh maintained that the demand of the agency is absurd and all this is being done as part of harassment. He also put a question mark on the tip off given by Mr. Arora who may have implicated Mr. Singh to secure his liberty.
Between the arguments, the AAP MP, who was personally present in the court, expressed shock at how the approver in this case randomly decided to implicate him in the case.
“I am not that unknown person that Mr. Arora have forgotten my name to be added in the multiple statements given during a course of investigation,” Mr. Singh added.
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The ED, on Wednesday, arrested Mr. Singh following several hours of questioning in connection with the Delhi excise policy case, in which former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia is already in judicial custody.
Mr. Singh, who is considered close to AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal, is the third senior AAP leader to be arrested in less than a year and a half, as former Delhi Public Works Department Minister Satyendar Jain was arrested by the ED on May 30 last year in an alleged money laundering case.
The court, earlier this month, allowed Mr. Arora and co-accused, Raghav Magunta, who is the son of YSRCP MP Magunta Sreenivasulu Reddy, to turn government witnesses in the case.
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The ED probe is based on a case registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation against the then Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and others on August 17 last year, on a Ministry of Home Affairs reference.
The case alleges deliberate irregularities in the framing and implementation of the excise policy and undue favours extended to the licencees in the form of waiver/reduction in the licence fee, an extension of L-1 licences without approval, etc. The ED has quantified the alleged “proceeds of crime” in the case to be at least ₹1,934 crore.
