Delhi liquor policy case: ED files chargesheet against Manish Sisodia

The ED filed a supplementary chargesheet running into 2,500 pages in the Delhi liquor policy case and named former Delhi deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia as an accused.

The chargesheet has 271 operative pages along with 2,100 pages of documents that the investigation agency relied upon.

On Tuesday, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) accused the AAP of "using" a part of the Rs 100 crore kickbacks allegedly received from the 'south group' liquor lobby to meet its expenditure for the Goa Assembly poll campaign in 2022.

The accusation has been made in the agency's supplementary charge sheet filed in the Delhi Excise policy linked money laundering case.

It has arraigned as accused a media publicity company, Chariot Productions Media Pvt. Ltd., and its owner-promoter Rajesh Joshi in the prosecution complaint. A Delhi court took cognisance of this charge sheet on Monday.

"A careful perusal of findings of investigation has revealed that several persons, including Rajesh Joshi and his company Chariot Productions Media Pvt Ltd, are actually involved in several processes/activities connected with a part of proceeds of crime ie. the kickbacks of Rs 100 crore received from the South Group," the ED alleged.

"Chariot Productions Media Pvt Ltd is not only involved in making payments through banking channel but also in cash through hawala network... and the actual beneficiary of these payments is AAP as these payments were used for meeting expenditure of Goa Elections in year 2022," it alleged.

It said the money laundering investigation launched by it in this case last year under the criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) found that "a part of proceeds of crime of Rs 30 crore were transferred through hawala network to make payments to vendors for advertisement in Goa election campaign of AAP." "The payment was made both through banking channel as well as through cash," the ED said.

It added, as part of the charge sheet filed in this case last month before a local court, "a part of money trail of proceeds of crime of Rs 80 lakh (approx) is traced back to advertisement vendors and survey for AAP during Goa elections." "All these transactions are inter-connected which represent the utilisation of proceeds of crime of Rs 100 crore through various multiple processes and activities which are interconnected for the reason that ultimately all the money was used by the leaders of AAP, including ministers and their associates in AAP government who were the architect of this liquor scam," it alleged.

(with PTI inputs)