NEW DELHI: The Central Bureau of Investigation has filed the sixth supplementary charge sheet in connection with its probe into ‘Liquor Policy scam’ case, which is the final one, naming Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and five others, including AAP MLA Durgesh Pathak, in the Rouse Avenue Court here, officials said on Monday.
The officials said the charge sheet has been filed following conclusion of its extensive probe into the alleged irregularities in formulation and implementation of Delhi excise policy, which is claimed to have involved substantial financial misconduct.
According to the officials the CBI had earlier filed one main charge sheet and four supplementary ones in the case in which former Delhi deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, Telangana MLC K Kavitha and others have also been accused. The charge sheet, which was filed on Monday, is the final one in the case, they added.
Earlier in June this year, the CBI arrested Kejriwal in the liquor policy case after the Rouse Avenue Court allowed the agency to examine the AAP supremo in court.
The agency has charged the Delhi Chief Minister as “one of the primary conspirators” in the liquor policy case, the officials said, adding that it is alleged that the ex-media in-charge of AAP and a close associate of Kejriwal, Vijay Nair, was in touch with several liquor producers and traders.
The CBI in the charge sheet has also claimed that the ex-post facto approval to former Delhi minister Manish Sisodia’s decisions on the liquor policy was given by the Cabinet headed by Kejriwal.
The agency has also alleged that the Chief Minister got the profit margin of liquor wholesalers enhanced from 5 per cent to 12 per cent without any rationale, they added.
“Arvind Kejriwal is part of the conspiracy in the alleged liquor scam. All Delhi government decisions were taken only as per his directions,” the CBI had said, in one of the earlier hearings before the court.
It is to be noted here that Kejriwal was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on March 21 under provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in a case linked to the alleged excise policy scam. The Supreme Court has since then granted him interim bail, but he is still in jail as the CBI had arrested him in the same case.
The agency officials said that in the charge sheet filed against arrested BRS leader K Kavitha, liquor businessman Magunta Sreenivasalu Reddy (a TDP MP) met Kejriwal on March 16, 2021 in his office at the Delhi Secretariat and sought support in his liquor business in the national capital by bringing in changes in the policy for 2021-22.
It was then alleged that Kejriwal assured support to Reddy and asked him to contact co-accused Kavitha as she was working with his team on the Delhi’s excise policy, the officials said, while adding that the CM had then in turn in turn allegedly told Reddy to provide funds to the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
The CBI had also alleged that kickbacks of around Rs 90-100 crore were paid in advance to some politicians of the ruling AAP in Delhi and other public servants by some persons in the liquor business from South India through co-accused Vijay Nair, Abhishek Boinpally and Dinesh Arora to bring changes in the Excise Policy for 2021-22.