Excise scam: 'Sisodia got emails fabricated through Delhi Minorities Commission chief', claims CBI

ATUL KRISHAN

New Delhi, May 15 (IANS) The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in its supplementary chargesheet filed in connection with the Delhi excise policy scam has alleged that former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia had got fabricated certain emails through Zakir Khan, Chairperson of Delhi Minorities Commission (DMC) to manipulate the process of seeking comments/suggestions in connection with the liquor policy.

The CBI has claimed that Sisodia was not happy with the recommendations of the Expert Committee report submitted on October 13, 2020, by former Excise Commissioner Ravi Dhawan and directed Rahul Singh, the new Excise Commissioner to put the report on Excise Department's portal to get comments from public and stakeholders.

For this purpose, a special email ID of the Excise Department was created, which was "[email protected]".

"Sisodia, with the mala-fide intention to manipulate the aforesaid process of seeking comments from public and stakeholders, got fabricated certain emails through Khan, Chairperson of DMC, which were sent by the interns of DMC on [email protected] with a copy to Sisodia's email ID," the CBI has alleged in the chargesheet.

The CBI has alleged that Sisodia gave a hand-written note to Khan in which suggestions regarding the new Excise Policy were written.

According to the CBI, Sisodia asked Khan to send multiple emails on the newly created email of the Excise Department.

These suggestions were regarding allotment of retail liquor license through auction of zones, reduction of excise and VAT as well as enhancement of license fee, and increase in the number of liquor vends.

"This proves that the accused Manish Sisodia was working with pre-conceived ideas for the formulation of the Excise Policy and was planting the manufactured public opinions /suggestions, in support of the same," read the chargesheet.

(Atul Krishan can be approached at [email protected])