More cases will be lodged as AAP grows: Sisodia on MHA’s prosecution sanction

Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia on Wednesday hit out at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led central government after the ministry of home affairs gave the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) its approval to investigate him in connection with a “feedback unit” (FBU) set up by the Delhi government in 2015.

According to CBI, the FBU was “functioning for some hidden purpose” which was not in the interest of the GNCTD but “private interest of the Aam Aadmi Party and Manish Sisodia”, who played an active role in the creation of the unit.

“Lodging false cases against your rivals is a sign of a weak and cowardly person. As the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) grows, many more cases will be filed against us,” Sisodia said in a tweet.

The development comes at a time when the deputy CM is already on CBI’s radar in connection with an alleged scam in the excise policy 2021-22—he has been summoned for questioning by the agency on February 26.

The snooping allegations against Sisodia were issued by CBI (which acted on a complaint filed by a Delhi government officer) in a report which claimed that after coming to power in Delhi in 2015, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) formed a feedback unit to gather political intelligence (which is against the law).

The AAP rubbished the allegations and said the case would not stand the scrutiny of the law.

AAP chief spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj said Sisodia was being implicated in a false case. “It is the work of losers and scared people to implicate their rivals in a false case. As the AAP grows further, more such false cases will be filed. This case is completely false,” Bharadwaj said in a statement.

Delhi BJP working president Virendra Sachdeva, however, claimed Sisodia will be jailed. “The BJP demands that CBI immediately arrest Sisodia. The role of CM Arvind Kejriwal, who was the mastermind behind the snooping, should also be probed,” Sachdeva said.

On February 8, CBI, in a preliminary inquiry report, found that the FBU set up by a cabinet decision on September 29, 2015, was involved in gathering political intelligence. The central agency recommended that a first information report (FIR) be registered against Sisodia and sought prosecution sanction from the lieutenant governor (LG). The LG referred the CBI request to the President of India through the ministry of home affairs.

The FBU started functioning on February 1, 2016, with a provision of ₹1 crore for secret service expenditure. According to CBI, the FBU investigated at least 700 cases during eight months, of which 60% of the reports generated by it pertained to vigilance and corruption matters, while “political intelligence” and other issues accounted for around 40%.

“Use of FBU to this extent for the purpose of gathering political intelligence for AAP or for its convenor Arvind Kejriwal can reasonably be interpreted to mean and constitute the obtaining of valuable things or pecuniary advantage, as gathering this information otherwise would necessarily have entailed spending money,” CBI alleged.

AAP’s Bharadwaj, meanwhile, said: “The whole country knows about the spying done by the central government through Pegasus. Everyone knows the kind of espionage in Gujarat during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s tenure as CM. I think this is a very childish and stupid thing. How is this possible that a government (AAP), which does not have control over telecommunications or the Anti Corruption Branch, is involved in espionage? Whenever such cases land in the courts, they do not stand the scrutiny of the law. They (BJP) have filed hundreds of cases against us and, in all the cases, we are being acquitted.”