NEW DELHI: Several AAP leaders on Monday sprang to defend former Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodia who was sent on a 14-day judicial custody by a Rouse Avenue court on the expiry of his seven-day CBI custody in the so-called liquor policy scam case.
Sisodia was produced before special judge M K Nagpal on Monday on the expiry of his custodial interrogation. The CBI told the court that it did not require the custody of the senior AAP leader for now.
An official was quoted as saying later that Sisodia was brought to Tihar Jail following the court order and he will be lodged in jail number-1 after the completion of the due formalities.
AAP spokesperson Atishi highlighted that the CBI, which is probing the alleged scam and had conducted raids at various locations of the country in this context, did not ask for Sisodia’s further remand.
“Even after raiding the former Education Minister’s house, office, locker, and his native village earlier, the CBI has not found any evidence to implicate him.
Despite the full-time involvement of nearly 250 CBI officers for over a year in investigating the alleged Delhi excise policy scam, the agency has not been able to find any concrete evidence against Manish Sisodia,” she said. She claimed that the agency’s only strategy was to coerce Sisodia into signing a false confession during the time it had his custody for seven days.
AAP MLA Kuldeep Kumar said that the whole country knew on whose behest the CBI had been acting so far. “Manish Sisodia has given the entire country an excellent model of education, and keeping such a person in jail will earn the BJP the ire of lakhs of children and their parents,” he said.
Meanwhile, the BJP on Monday burnt the effigies of Manish Sisodia, Satyendra Jain and Arvind Kejriwal at several locations in the city. “Holika Dahan symbolises the victory of good over evil. Today, Aam Aadmi Party leaders are symbols of liquor scams and corruption, so we have gathered to burn their effigies,” said BJP state president Virendra Sachdeva.
Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee president Anil Kumar Chaudhary said that the court’s decision to send Sisodia to 14-day judicial custody has established that there was strong evidence against him in the alleged liquor scam. He said that in the past 10 years, the government had created a sort of world record in committing scams without fulfilling any of the promises made to the people.
Sisodia, who held 18 portfolios in the Delhi government including Education and Excise, had resigned from the Kejriwal-led Cabinet following his arrest by the CBI in connection with alleged corruption in the formulation and implementation of the now-scrapped Excise Policy for 2021-22.