NEW DELHI: The custodial remand of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) communication overseer Vijay Nair and Hyderabad-based businessman Abhishek Boinpally in connection with its ongoing money laundering probe into the Delhi Excise policy was extended by 5 more days.
Special Judge MK Nagpal extended their custody after ED counsel Naveen Matta submitted that the two needed to be confronted with more witnesses who have been summoned by the agency to depose in view of fresh revelations and disclosures.
The ED told the special PMLA court that two more witnesses – Chandan Reddy and Gochi Babu were summoned for deposition following fresh revelation during custodial interrogation of the two accused and fresh searches that were carried out last week following their arrest. Nair and Boinpally were arrested on November 14 and were remanded in 5-day ED custody.
ED sources said that both the accused were also confronted by the Sharath Chandra Reddy of Aurobindo Pharma and Binoy Babu, general manager of liquor company Pernod Ricard. Both Reddy and Babu were arrested in November and have been in CBI custody since then. The ED got their remand extension last Thursday till Monday in view of fresh leads.
Nair, the former CEO of Only Much Louder (OML), an entertainment and event management company closely associated with the AAP, was arrested by the CBI in September while Boinpally was apprehended last month.
The duo has been in judicial custody since last month after their interrogation by the CBI. The Hyderabad-based Boinpally is not named as an accused in the CBI FIR but his close associate and partner Arun Ramchandra Pillai is. The two founded Robin Distribution LLP in July this year, according to the Registrar of Companies (RoC) database.
According to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Nair and Boinpally were actively involved in irregularities in the framing and implementation of excise policy. They influenced the distribution of liquor licenses to various traders and distributors and were involved in large-scale cartelization, it said.
The money laundering case being investigated by ED is a fallout of a CBI FIR that had named Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia as accused number one in the Delhi Excise case. The CBI is conducting a parallel probe regarding irregularities in the Delhi excise policy, which Sisodia had approved, under the Prevention of Corruption Act. The policy caused huge losses to the Delhi exchequer.
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The CBI registered case on the complaint by the Delhi LG who said that several procedures were tweaked in order to benefit private liquor barons and individuals and that an investigation must be carried out to find kickbacks, according to people in Saxena’s office, who pointed fingers at the “highest echelons of the government leading up to deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia”.