Excise policy: Court gives bail to Dinesh Arora
Delhi’s Rouse Avenue Court had in November 2022 allowed an application moved by the CBI seeking to make Arora an approver in the case
A Delhi court on Tuesday granted bail to businessman Dinesh Arora, who turned approver for the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) case in connection with alleged irregularities in the Delhi excise policy 2021-22 — but was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a parallel probe in the same case.
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Special judge MK Nagpal granted regular bail to Arora on a personal bond of ₹1 lakh and a surety of like amount.
Delhi’s Rouse Avenue Court had in November 2022 allowed an application moved by the CBI seeking to make Arora an approver in the case.
ED had on July 11 apprised the court that the fact that Arora had disclosed while he was in their custody had led to various searches being carried out in Delhi-NCR which led to recovery of several incriminating material.
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The anti-money laundering agency had previously said that the excise policy, specifically brought by former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, promoted cartel formations through the back door, awarded exorbitant wholesale profit margins of 12%, and “incentivised” other illegal activities as part of a criminal conspiracy by Sisodia and other Aam Aadmi Party leaders to extract kickbacks from liquor businesses, and has filed five charge sheets in the case.
The Delhi government’s 2021-22 excise policy aimed to revitalise the city’s flagging liquor business. It aimed to replace a sales-volume based regime with a licence fee-based 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 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 Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) alleging that Saxena’s predecessor sabotaged the move with a few last-minute changes that resulted in lower-than-expected revenues.
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