Delhi snooping case: Centre gives sanction to prosecute Manish Sisodia

Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena had approved the Central Bureau of Investigation's request for prosecution sanction and had forwarded the same to the MHA.

Centre on Wednesday gave sanction to prosecute Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia under the Prevention of Corruption of Act in the 'Feedback Unit' alleged snooping case.

In a communication to the principal secretary to the Delhi Lieutenant Governor, the home ministry said the sanction to prosecute Sisodia was granted under Section 17 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.

The snooping allegations against Sisodia have been brought by the CBI in a report which claimed that the FBU set up by Delhi government months after AAP came to power in Delhi in 2015 indulged in "political intelligence".

Reacting to the development, Sisodia said the more AAP will grow, the more cases will be filed against its leaders, following the MHA's sanction to the CBI to prosecute him in a case of alleged collection of "political intelligence".

"Filing cases against one's rivals is a sign of a weak and coward person. The more AAP will grow, the more cases will be filed against us," he said in a tweet in Hindi.

Earlier, Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena had approved the Central Bureau of Investigation's request for prosecution sanction and had forwarded the same to the MHA.

The CBI report said that the FBU was tasked to gather actionable feedback regarding working of various departments of Delhi government and also to do "trap cases".

The FBU started functioning from February 2016 and a fund of Rs 1 crore was kept for it under "secret service expenditure". A rough analysis of nature of reports generated by the unit revealed that while 60 per cent of it was related to vigilance matters, political intelligence and other issues accounted for around 40 per cent, the report said.

"Scrutiny of such reports during the period from February 2016 to early September 2016 shows that a substantial number of reports submitted by FBU officials were not actionable feedback on corruption in any department, but related to political activities of persons, political entities and political issues touching political interest of the Aam Admi Party," the report said.

"The feedback unit was not functioning in the manner and for the purpose approved by the cabinet but was working for some other hidden purposes which were not in the interest of the GNCTD but private interest of Aam Admi Party and Manish Sisodia, the Dy CM, who played an active role in its creation of Feedback flouting established rules of GNCTD and MHA." charged the CBI report. It also alleged that the "unlawful" manner of creation and working of the FBU caused loss of to the government exchequer to the tune of around Rs 36 lakh.