Delhi excise policy: Delhi HC says not possible to advance hearing on ED plea

New Delhi, Mar 21 (PTI) The Delhi High Court on Friday said it was not possible to advance the hearing on a plea of the Enforcement Directorate in the alleged money laundering case related to the now scrapped Delhi excise policy.

Justice Ravinder Dudeja, who said there were several cases pending, said the accused persons, including AAP leaders Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia and Sanjay Singh, wished to respond to the plea and the Enforcement Directorate's (ED) petition.

The application for advancing the hearing was filed in a pending petition in which the ED challenged a trial court's last year order directing it to supply "unrelied documents" to the accused in the case.

Alternatively the ED sought for a direction to the trial court to hear and decide the applications filed by various parties in the case.

"Since the respondents want to file replies and taking into consideration the status of the court's board, it may not be possible to pre-pone the date of the matter," the court said.

The counsel for the ED and the accused said they would request the trial court on April 3 to fix the matter for a later date.

The high court had allowed the ED to electronically serve the accused its plea, challenging the trial court's order, to save public money.

It had sought the response of 40 accused persons, including the AAP leaders, on the ED's plea challenging the trial court's order, which in November 2024, directed the ED to supply the chargesheet and the digitised records of the remaining "unrelied documents" (those which are not used by the prosecution to support their case) to the persons accused in the money laundering case.

Former Delhi chief minister Kejriwal, AAP leaders Sisodia and Singh and BRS leader K Kavitha are some of the accused in the case aside from several businesspersons.

The ED said the trial court directed it to supply unrelied upon documents to the accused at the stage of scrutiny of documents.

However, as per the Supreme Court's direction, only a list of unrelied upon documents were to be given at the stage and not the documents, the ED added.

According to the CBI and the ED, irregularities took place during the modification of the excise policy and the licence holders got undue favours.

The Delhi government implemented the policy on November 17, 2021, and scrapped it by the end of September 2022 amid allegations of corruption.

The money laundering case stems from a CBI case lodged after Delhi Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena recommended a probe into the alleged irregularities in the implementation of the excise policy. PTI SKV AMK

Source: PTI