The Supreme Court on Monday sought a response from the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on the bail plea of the Aam Aadmi Party’s former communication in-charge Vijay Nair in a money laundering case related to the alleged Delhi excise policy scam.
A bench of Justices Hrishikesh Roy and SVN Bhatti issued notice to the central agency and sought its response within four weeks.
"It is submitted that the petitioner is in custody for nearly 2 years since he was arrested by the CBI and has been in continuous custody of the ED...Issue notice," the bench said.
Senior advocates Abhishek Singhvi and Vikram Chaudhary, appearing for the petitioner, submitted that Nair has been in jail for almost two years.
Referring to the Manish Sisodia case, they said there were 353 witnesses and the trial has not commenced till date.
Nair, who was arrested on November 13, 2022, has challenged the trial court’s July 29 order dismissing his default bail plea.
Earlier, the high court had on July 3 last year refused to grant bail to Nair and other co-accused in the money laundering case.
The money laundering case stems from a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) FIR which was lodged after Delhi Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena recommended a probe into the new excise policy in 2021 which was later scrapped.
The CBI has alleged that Nair met some other co-accused, liquor manufacturers and distributors at various hotels in Hyderabad, Mumbai and Delhi for arranging “ill-gotten money through hawala operators” that was given to AAP as kickback in return for favours by the party government in Delhi.
It has also claimed that businessman and co-accused Abhishek Boinpally was part of the meetings and was involved in the conspiracy to launder money along with another accused liquor businessman Sameer Mahendru.
The ED had raided nearly three dozen locations in Delhi and Punjab following the arrest of Mahendru, the managing director of liquor distributor Indospirit Group, which is based in Delhi’s Jor Bagh.
The other accused in the case are Manish Sisodia, a former Delhi deputy chief minister, former excise commissioner Arva Gopi Krishna, ex-deputy commissioner in the excise department Anand Tiwari and former assistant commissioner Pankaj Bhatnagar.
According to the CBI and ED, irregularities were committed while modifying the excise policy and undue favours were extended to the licence holders.
The Delhi government had implemented the excise policy on November 17, 2021 but scrapped it at the end of September 2022 amid allegations of corruption.
