The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Sunday issued Look-Out Circulars (LoCs) against eight of the private persons who have been arraigned in the case that alleges irregularities in the Delhi government’s now-withdrawn excise policy committed by Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and others. However, the CBI clarified that no LOC has been issued so far against any of the public servants named in the case.
An agency official identified them as Vijay Nair, former chief executive officer of Mumbai-based Only Much Louder, an entertainment and event management company (Mumbai); Amandeep Dhal, a director of Brindco Sales (Delhi); Sameer Mahendru, who is the managing director of Indospirit Group (Delhi); Buddy Retail Private Limited (Delhi) director Amit Arora; Mahadev Liquors’ authorised signatory Sunny Marwah, Dinesh Arora; Arun Ramchandra Pillai and Arjun Pandey.
In the First Information Report, the CBI has named 15 accused persons. They include four public servants — Mr. Sisodia, the then Excise Commissioner Arva Gopi Krishna, Deputy Commissioner Anand Tiwari, and Assistant Commissioner Pankaj Bhatnagar. The role of several other government servants and private persons is also being probed.
LoCs are opened by the law enforcement agencies and banks to either prevent a person of interest from leaving the country through the designated ports of entry-exit or just remain informed about the person’s movement.
In the excise-policy case, the CBI questioned some of the accused persons to record their statements. On Friday, the agency conducted searches on their premises in Delhi, Gurugram, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Lucknow and Bengaluru.
In the FIR, registered on a reference from the Union Home Ministry, it has been alleged that there were irregularities while modifying the excise policy. While undue favours were extended to the licence holders, licence fee was waived/reduced and L-1 licence extended without the competent authority’s permission. The illegal gains were transferred to the accused public servants by private parties, which made false entries in their books of accounts to conceal the money trail, it is alleged.
According to the agency, the Excise Department had decided to refund the Earnest Money Deposit of about ₹30 crore to a successful tenderer against the extant rules. Despite the fact that there was no such provision, it allowed a waiver on tendered licence fee due to the COVID-19 pandemic from December 28, 2021, to January 27, 2022, which allegedly caused a loss of ₹144.36 crore to the exchequer.
The CBI has also alleged that Mr. Sisodia’s close associates, Buddy Retail director Amit Arora, Dinesh Arora, and Arjun Pandey, were actively involved in managing and diverting the undue pecuniary benefits collected from the private persons to the officials in question.
