The Central Bureau of Investigation, in its FIR, named Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia as the first of the 15 accused in the alleged excise policy scam.
Besides Sisodia, who also holds the excise portfolio, the CBI has named as accused former excise commissioner Arava Gopi Krishna, former deputy excise commissioner Anand Kumar Tiwari, assistant excise commissioner Pankaj Bhatnagar, nine businessmen and two companies.
The agency, in the FIR, claimed that a liquor trader paid Rs 1 crore to a company managed by an associate of Sisodia.
CBI alleged that Sisodia and other accused public servants recommended and took decisions pertaining to the excise policy 2021-22 without the approval of competent authority with "an intention to extend undue favours to the licencees post tender".
The CBI, on Friday, raided the Delhi residence of Sisodia, that of IAS officer and former Delhi excise commissioner Arava Gopi Krishna and 19 other locations across seven states and Union territories after it registered an FIR to investigate alleged irregularities in the formulation and execution of the Delhi Excise Policy brought out in November last year.
Delhi Lt Governor V.K. Saxena last month recommended a CBI probe into alleged irregularities in the implementation of the Excise Policy 2021-22. He had also suspended 11 excise officials in the matter. Sisodia had also demanded a CBI probe into the alleged irregularities in the policy.
—With PTI inputs
