CBI questions personal assistant of Sisodia in excise policy case

NEW DELHI: The CBI on Tuesday questioned former Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia's personal assistant Devender Sharma in connection with alleged corruption in formulating and implementing of the now-scrapped excise policy for 2021-22, officials said.

Sharma alias Rinku was summoned to the CBI headquarters where he was questioned by officials of the anti-corruption branch since morning, they said.

The agency had arrested Sisodia on February 26 and he was sent to judicial custody by a special CBI court here till March 20, the officials said.

The Enforcement Directorate is also questioning Sisodia at the Tihar jail on Tuesday, they said. Sisodia, who was in-charge of the excise department, was not mentioned as an accused in the chargesheet filed in the case on November 25 last year. According to officials, the CBI had not named Sisodia in the chargesheet as the central probe agency kept the probe open against him and other suspects and accused.

The CBI alleged that wholesale dealers were given undue profit margins under the influence of a 'south lobby', a coterie of Hyderabad-based businessmen and politicians, in the Delhi government's excise policy for 2021-22, a charge strongly refuted by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). The policy was later scrapped.

''It was further alleged that irregularities were committed, including modifications in the excise policy, extending undue favours to the licensees, waiver/reduction in licence fee, the extension of L-1 license without approval etc,'' a CBI spokesperson had said after the FIR was filed on August 17 last year. ''It was also alleged that illegal gains on the count of these acts were diverted to concerned public servants by private parties by making false entries in their books of accounts,'' the official had said.