Supreme Court denied bail for Manish Sisodia in Liquor Excise police case

In a shock to the Aam Aadmi Party, the Supreme Court denied bail to Manish Sisodia on October 30, Monday.

A two judge bench consisting of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and SVN Bharti denied bail to the former deputy Chief Minister of Delhi. The judges also noted that Sisodia can again apply for bail after 3 months.

Sisodia and the Liquor Case

The former deputy minister is serving in jail for the past 241 days. He was charged for corruption and money laundering. He was arrested in February earlier this year.

He was also accused for destroying evidence about the case. He was accused for changing liquor excise police for monetary gains and benefiting liquor wholesalers.

Not just Supreme Court, but even the trial court and high court also declined the plea for bail by the former minister.

This order is seen  as a winning for CBI, which provided strong arguments against Sisodia indicating his involvement in the case.

Judgement of Supreme court

The Apex Court noted CBI's claim of Sisodia making changes in the policy for enabling bribes from wholesale distributors by increasing their commission from five to twelve percent. Since the policy was in place for 10 months, the distributors earned another seven percent more commission which accounts for Rs 338 crore,  while also mentioning that this figure cannot be challenged.

CBI also alleged that " aware that three liquor manufacturers have 85 per cent share in Delhi market... as per the new exercise policy, each manufacturer could appoint only one wholesale distributor (but) wholesale distributors could enter into agreements with multiple manufacturers".

Manish Sisodia was also charged for destroying digital evidences. According to reports, Sisodia destroyed his previous phone to destroy digital evidences.  ED argued that the Sisodia used over a dozen of mobile phones during the timing of crime and tried destroying potential evidences.

Agencies also argued that Sisodia was threatening witnesses of the policy. The agencies also argued that, if he is provided bail, he might try to affect the witnesses and would later deny.

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