New Delhi:
Former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Thursday approached the Supreme Court seeking bail in the corruption and money laundering cases filed by the CBI and the ED respectively in connection with the alleged excise tax scam. The bail applications will be heard by Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma on Friday.
Sisodia approached the Supreme Court after a court on April 30 refused to grant him bail in the case.
The bail pleas were mentioned by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader's counsel before a bench of Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Manmeet PS Arora for an urgent hearing, who agreed to mention the same for Friday.
'Let the judge review the file. So, let it come tomorrow,” the court said.
Advocates Rajat Bhardwaj and Mohammad Irshad, representing Sisodia, told the court that the petitioner is an MLA and requested that both bail pleas be listed for an urgent hearing.
The court had rejected Sisodia's bail pleas in the corruption and money laundering cases filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) respectively in connection with alleged irregularities in the formulation and implementation of the now scrapped excise duty in Delhi . policy for 2021-2022.
The beneficiaries channeled 'illegal' profits to the accused officials and made false entries in their accounts to evade detection, the investigating agencies allege.
The special judge, in the April 30 order, had rejected the relief and said it is not the appropriate stage to grant bail to Sisodia.
The AAP leader was arrested by the CBI on February 26, 2023 for his alleged role in the “scam”. The ED arrested the former deputy prime minister in a money laundering case arising out of the CBI FIR on March 9, 2023.
Sisodia resigned from the Delhi Cabinet on February 28, 2023.
The Supreme Court had rejected Sisodia's bail pleas in the CBI and ED cases dated May 30 and July 3, respectively, last year.
On October 30, 2023, the Supreme Court also declined to interfere with the Supreme Court's verdict, saying that the investigating agencies' claim that some wholesale liquor distributors had made “windfalls” of Rs 338 crore was “preliminarily supported” by material and evidence.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)