The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has told a Delhi court that funds collected in an alleged scam surrounding Delhi’s excise policy were diverted by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for its assembly elections campaign in Goa in 2022, and that chief minister Arvind Kejriwal told liquor businessman Sameer Mahendru that AAP’s communications in-charge Vijay Nair had the party’s trust, according to details of a charge sheet that emerged on Thursday. Mahendru and Nair are both accused in the excise policy case that is being investigated by ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
The AAP rubbished the ED’s charges. Kejriwal described them as “pure fiction”, and said the agency was being used by the ruling Bharatiya Janaya Party (BJP) “to make and break governments”.
According to the ED charge sheet — its second in the case, and one that the court took cognisance of on Thursday — Kejriwal, in a video call arranged by Nair, told Mahendru that “Vijay is his boy and that he should trust him”. ED did not specify when this alleged call took place.
“Nair had arranged a meeting of the owner of Indo Spirits – Sameer Mahendru (who is part of a super cartel along with the alleged ‘South Group’) with Arvind Kejriwal, and when that didn’t materialise, he arranged a video call through FaceTime on his phone for Mahendru and Kejriwal, where Kejriwal said to Mahendru that Vijay is his boy and that Mahendru should trust him and carry on with him,” said the ED charge sheet, quoting an alleged statement given to the agency by Mahendru on November 15 last year.
“These facts are relevant to mention so as to establish the abetment of his (Nair’s) actions in relation to the excise policy scam, by the political leaders of AAP”, ED added.
To be sure, neither Kejriwal nor deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia have been named as accused in either of the two charge sheets that ED has filed so far.
The ED alleged that a part of a ₹100 crore “kickback” received by Nair from a “South Group” on behalf of the AAP leaders was used for the Goa assembly elections campaign.
“Investigation of the trail of this kickback so far as revealed that part of these funds was used in the election campaign of the AAP for Goa assembly elections 2022. Cash payments to the tune of ₹70 lakh were made to the volunteers who were part of the survey teams,” ED charge sheet said.
The ‘South Group’ allegedly comprises YSR Congress MP Magunta Srinivasulu Reddy, his son Raghav Magunta, Sarath Reddy (promoter of Aurobindo Group), and K Kavitha (daughter of Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao), and it allegedly controlled nine out of 32 retail liquor zones in Delhi as part of a “super cartel” formed with Mahendru.
Reacting on the ED claims, Kejriwal said the federal agency has filed over 5,000 charge sheets but hardly anyone has been convicted. “All the cases of ED are fake. They are used to make and break governments. ED does not file case against corruption. ED files cases to buy MLA (s) and break governments. This ED charge sheet is pure fiction,” the chief minister added.
BRS MLA K Kavitha has termed the allegations against her in the Delhi excise policy as “bogus” and termed it the BJP’s “political vendetta”.
“The allegations against me are totally bogus and false. Only time will provide my sincerity. It is political vendetta against me by the BJP as the TRS government in Telangana has exposed their anti-people policies,” she tweeted on December 22.
YSRCP MP Reddy said he has no role to play in the matter.
“It’s a conspiracy by north Indians,” he said on December 1.
Citing an alleged statement by Sisodia’s secretary C Arvind, the federal agency also claimed that the decision to fix 12% profit margin for the wholesale private entities was conveyed to him at Kejriwal’s residence in mid-March 2021.
“In mid-March 2021, C Arvind was called by Sisodia to Kejriwal’s residence (where Satyendar Jain was also present) and Sisodia handed over a document to C Arvind which was a draft GoM report proposing that wholesale [contracts] should go to private entities and asked him to prepare the draft GoM report on the basis of the said document. He said that it was the first time that he saw this proposal as the same was never discussed in any GoM meetings,” the ED charge sheet said.
It asserted that the alleged conspiracy to give wholesale business to private entities and fix 12% margin (to get 6% kickback) was clear from an alleged statement of C Arvind in which he disclosed that there was neither any discussion in the GoM meetings about giving wholesale business to private entities nor fixing 12% profit margin for them.
The charge sheet was filed last month against Nair, Abhishek Boinpally, an alleged consultant who lobbied for the “South Group”, Aurobindo Pharma’s promoter P Sarath Chandra Reddy, Pernod Ricard’s manager Benoy Babu, and Amit Arora, the owner of Buddy Retail Pvt Ltd.
There was no statement from the AAP other than Kejriwal’s comment at a press briefing on another issue.
BJP comment here.
The Delhi government’s 2021-22 excise policy aimed to revitalise the city’s flagging liquor business. It wanted to replace a sales-volume based regime with a license fee one for traders, and promised swankier stores, free of the infamous metal grilles, ultimately giving customers a better buying experience. The policy also introduced discounts and offers on the purchase of liquor, a first for Delhi.
The plan, however, came to an abrupt end, with Delhi’s lieutenant governor VK Saxena recommending a CBI probe into alleged irregularities in the regime. This ultimately resulted in the policy being scrapped prematurely and being replaced by the 2020-21 regime, with the AAP alleging that Saxena’s predecessor sabotaged the move with a few last-minute changes that resulted in lower-than-expected revenues.
