The Enforcement Directorate headquarters in New Delhi
After the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), another federal agency, the Enforcement Directorate (ED), has now filed a chargesheet in the alleged Delhi liquor scam case. Accused Sameer Mahendru has been named in ED's initial chargesheet filed today.
Both CBI and ED are investigating whether the Delhi government's excise policy, which has now been scrapped, was framed to provide undue and illegal favours to liquor manufacturers and distributors at the cost of the government exchequer.
While filing the chargesheet at the Rouse Avenue Court in Delhi, ED said it had named only Sameer Mahendru for now. Later, there will be chargesheets against the other accused, since investigation is still in progress.
Reacting to the ED chargesheet, which did not include Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia's name, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted: "Manish ji's name is not even in ED's charge sheet. Shouldn't Modi apologize to the country for implicating Manish ji, who brought laurels to India through education revolution, in a false case?"
While instructing ED to file a copy of the chargesheet in the court's register, the court said that since the chargesheet filed by the central agency comprises a large number of documents, it may take some time for the court to take cognizance of it.
According to sources, the ED chargesheet runs into 3,000 pages.
The CBI has already registered an FIR against some public servants and Excise Department officers, Mr Sisodia, and others in the case.
Earlier this month, ED had carried out as many as 169 search operations and arrested many top executives, including the promoter of liquor company Indospirit, the general manager of the liquor company and full-time director and promoter of Aurobindo Pharma.
The central agency had filed a money laundering case in August after taking note of a complaint filed by the CBI that had named the Delhi Deputy Chief Minister as an accused, apart from senior bureaucrats of the Delhi government and others.
The central agency had also searched the premises of an aide of Mr Sisodia and later questioned him at its Delhi office.