Sisodia moved to judicial custody in excise policy case

A Delhi court on Monday remanded former Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia to 14 days in judicial custody in relation to a case of alleged irregularities in the now-scrapped excise policy.

- Deepankar Malviya

A Delhi court on Monday remanded former Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia to 14 days in judicial custody in relation to a case of alleged irregularities in the now-scrapped excise policy.

Sisodia, who will now join his former colleague Satyender Jain at Delhi’s Tihar Jail, was produced before special judge MK Nagpal after the expiry of his Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) custody in the case. His bail plea is likely to come up before the court on March 10.

“Keeping in view the facts that investigation of the case is still pending to unearth the entire conspiracy and the role of other persons involved therein, the accused is remanded to JC till 20.03.2023 and he is directed to be produced before this court on the above-said date at 2pm physically, as has been requested on behalf of the accused,” the judge said in his order.

CBI had moved an application to send Sisodia to judicial custody but later told the court that it may seek further police custody at a later stage as the investigation was ongoing. The agency also blamed the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for trying to give a political colour to the issue.

Senior AAP leaders on Monday said that by not seeking custody, the CBI proved it had “no questions left to ask Sisodia”.

“CBI did not find any evidence against Sisodia even after seven days of interrogation, so it did not ask for further custody... Despite conducting raids for over a year, the CBI has not found any evidence against him,” said AAP spokesperson and Kalkaji MLA Atishi.