NEW DELHI: Aam Aadmi Party leader Manish Sisodia on Thursday told the Delhi High Court that every accused in the liquor policy case registered by the CBI has been released on bail while he was being ‘singled out’ in order to be kept in prison.
Arguing before the single-judge bench of Justice Dinesh Kumar Sharma, Senior Advocate Dayan Krishnan said that the central agency has no evidence to show that Sisodia tampered with evidence. The judge was hearing the bail application of the AAP politician challenging the trial court order denying him bail.
Reiterating an earlier argument, Krishnan submitted that non-cooperation cannot be the ground to deny bail to Sisodia. “They say that I do not cooperate. This can never be the ground to deny me bail. I am not required to cooperate, confess, or answer questions in the way they want. I am required to answer in the way I want, that is the constitutional guarantee,” he said.
About the agency’s argument of tampering of evidence, ‘tampering of evidence, file missing, phones not given’, Krishnan questioned the prima facie fundamental burden in it. “The investigation agency should say that they have some material to say that there was something in the phone or say that there was a file…You can’t just come to court and say it’s missing and the court also accepts it on face value that yes it’s missing,” he argued.
Senior Advocate Mohit Mathur, also appearing for Sisodia, said that the figures being cited by CBI are just on paper. “There is nothing concrete, nothing on paper, no money trail found,” he submitted. “They make me the chief architect of this alleged conspiracy through Vijay Nair. But Nair was arrested in September 2022 and released in November, even before the chargesheet is filed. I was only called for questioning for the second time in February 2023. So, all these allegations about my being capable of influencing the witnesses are totally wrong,” it was argued.
The court then asked the ASG to explain how the excise policy is run. The court said that the CBI can call its investigating officer to explain it. The Aam Aadmi Party’s second-in-command Sisodia, who was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on February 26 was later arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on March 9 in Tihar Jail in the liquor policy case on grounds that there was ample material to confront him with evidence, accused and statements to seek his responses with respect to the proofs and facts on record. The court, after hearing the arguments made by Sisodia’s lawyers, fixed April 26 as the next date of hearing for submissions by the CBI counsel.
