Delhi excise policy: Court extends businessman Amit Arora's ED custody by seven days

A court in New Delhi on Wednesday extended by seven days the custodial interrogation of businessman Amit Arora, the director of Gurugram-based Buddy Retail Pvt Limited, in connection with a money laundering probe into alleged irregularities in the Delhi excise policy case. Special Judge N K Nagpal passed the order on a plea moved by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) as the accused was produced before the court after the expiry of his seven-day custody.

Special Public Prosecutor N K Matta appeared for the ED, which claimed that Arora needed to be quizzed further to unearth the larger conspiracy.

Arora was arrested by the ED under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) on November 29.


The ED told the court that the accused was required to be confronted with other co-accused and evidence collected during the investigation.

It said that on the basis of the investigation conducted so far, Arora was involved in activity connected to the acquisition, possession and use of the proceeds of crime.

It further claimed that the accused did not cooperate in the investigation and withheld information which was in his exclusive knowledge and extremely relevant to the probe.

The agency added that huge digital and physical records have been seized during the search operations conducted till date which it needed to confront Arora with.

He needs to be interrogated with respect to other associates and entities involved in the crime and regarding paying kickbacks to public servants, the ED said in its application moved through advocate Mohd Faizan Khan.

The ED's money laundering case stems from a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) FIR.

The CBI, in its first charge sheet filed in the case last week, claimed that Arora, along with co-accused Dinesh Arora and Arjun Pandey, is a close associate of Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and the three were actively involved in "managing" and "diverting" the undue pecuniary advantage collected from liquor licensees for the accused public servants.

The ED also filed its first charge sheet (prosecution complaint) in the case in November, naming arrested businessman Sameer Mahandru, his company Indospirit, and a few other entities.

The CBI has also got Dinesh Arora to turn approver in the case.

It had alleged the Delhi government, with its now-scrapped policy to grant licences to liquor traders, favoured certain dealers who had allegedly paid bribes for it, a charge strongly refuted by the ruling AAP.

"It was further alleged that irregularities were committed in modifications in excise policy, extending undue favours to the licensee, waiver/reduction in licence fee and extension of L-1 licence without approval, etc.

"It was also alleged that illegal gains on account of these acts were diverted to concerned public servants by private parties by making false entries in their books of accounts," a CBI spokesperson had said.

Besides Sisodia, who holds the excise portfolio in the Delhi government, the CBI had named the then excise commissioner Arava Gopi Krishna, the then deputy excise commissioner Anand Kumar Tiwari, assistant excise commissioner Pankaj Bhatnagar, nine businessmen, and two companies as accused in its FIR filed on August 17.

In its FIR, the agency has alleged that Sisodia and other accused public servants recommended and took decisions pertaining to the Delhi Excise Policy 2021-22 without the approval of the competent authority with "an intention to extend undue favours to the licensees post tender".