Delhi court grants bail in excise case, says CBI evidence weak

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A Delhi court on Tuesday granted bail to the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) communications in-charge Vijay Nair and consultant Abhishek Boinpally in connection with an alleged scam in the state excise policy, and pulled up the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for not producing any material evidence to substantiate its charges.

Special judge MK Nagpal said that the agency has presented verbal evidence, which is not incriminating by itself, and the veracity of the statements could be checked during the time of the trial.

“Except the oral evidence collected in the form of statements, there is also no other evidence or material gathered till date to show the alleged transmission of such huge amounts of money through the applicants by the other co-accused. In any case, the above oral evidence will have to be tested during the course of trial, and it will be a matter of time only if it is able to be transformed into an acceptable piece of evidence or not, which can be acted upon by this court,” the court said in its order on Monday, which was made public on Tuesday.

The court added that the trial will determine see if the accused were in a position to influence public servants involved in framing and implementing the excise policy, and if so, on and for what considerations.

It said that there were no allegations against the two of commission of any substantive offences under sections of Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Corruption Act, as they are only alleged to be a part a criminal conspiracy, which entails a maximum imprisonment of seven years and cannot be considered severe enough to deny bail.

Though the two were granted bail in the CBI case, the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which has been probing the money laundering aspect of the case, arrested them on Monday, following which they were sent to five days’ custodial interrogation by the federal agency.

The Delhi government’s 2021-22 excise policy aimed to revitalise the city’s flagging liquor business, to replace a sales-volume based regime with a license fee one for traders, and promised upgraded stores to give customers a better buying experience, apart from increasing government revenue.

But early revenues did not meet expectations due to implementation troubles, and the plan came to an abrupt halt after Delhi’s lieutenant governor (LG) Vinai Kumar Saxena recommended a CBI probe into alleged irregularities in the regime. This led to in the policy being scrapped, and being replaced by the 2020-21 regime.

In August, CBI, in its first information report (FIR) named Delhi deputy CM Manish Sisodia as an accused in the case. He has denied all allegations, and Sisodia and the AAP have dismissed the probe as a politically motivated witch-hunt.

CBI has claimed that Nair and Boinpally were involved in violation of the policy by illegally and indirectly securing the cartelisation between the liquor manufacturers, wholesalers, and retail vendors. It was alleged that, in order to achieve the ends, money were transferred through hawala channels prior to finalisation of the policy by some liquor manufacturers of south India, and these amounts were routed through them.

The Delhi court, while granting relief to the two, agreed to the contentions of Nair’s counsel that there was no criminality in attending meetings, as he was looking after the press and media affairs of the ruling AAP in Delhi; and that this is also true for Boinpally though his profile was different.

The judge noted that though Nair was not in India when searches were carried out by CBI at his residence, he returned to join the investigation and surrendered his mobile phone to the investigating officer (IO).

For Boinpally, the court said that though his name was not named in the FIR, he joined the investigation on eight occasions.

“…further detention of the applicants in custody in such a situation can never be justified and that too when they both had joined the investigation of the case even prior to their arrest in the case,” the court said.

The court said that the two are not flight risks, and are not likely to abscond from facing trial if released on bail, adding that apprehension of tampering with evidence or influencing of the witnesses is apparently without any basis, and that the issue can be handled of by imposing reasonable conditions or restrictions.


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