Supreme Court dismisses Manish Sisodia’s treatment petition seeking bail

The Supreme Court dismissed Manish Sisodia’s curative petition challenging its decision to dismiss his bail plea for liquor policy violations.

Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud joined by Justices Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai and SVN Bhatti dismissed the curative petition filed by Manish Sisodia.

“We have gone through the treatment petition and related documents. We are of the view that no case falls within the ambit laid down by the court in its decision in Rupa Ashok Hurra v. Ashok Hurra,” the Supreme Court said in its order on March 13.

“The treatment application is dismissed,” the Supreme Court said.

Earlier on December 13, the Supreme Court had dismissed former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Siodia’s review plea against the Supreme Court order denying bail in the excise policy violation case.

On October 30, 2023, the Supreme Court rejected Manish Sisodia’s bail plea.

The court had earlier observed that there was a change in the existing GST policy to facilitate and obtain kickbacks for wholesale distributors by increasing commission/fees of wholesale distributors from 5% under the old policy to 12% under the new policy and bribery. So a conspiracy has been hatched to craft new policies that deviate from expert opinions/perspectives to create an ecosystem that ensures unfair enrichment of wholesale distributors at the expense of wholesale distributors.

government finance or consumers. The report states that illicit proceeds (the proceeds of crime, according to the DOE) will be partially recycled and returned in the form of bribes.

The investigating agency alleged that Vijay Nair was a fixer, go-between, AAP member and co-trustee of the appellant Manish Sisodia, along with Butchi Babu ), Arun Pillai, Abhishek Boinpally and Sarath Reddy were in a relationship. , the excise policy will be framed in accordance with the proposed conditions and terms to meet the satisfaction and aspirations of the liquor group.

The court noted that the CBI alleged that the policy facilitated and promoted cartelization and ensured that large wholesale distributors with high market shares earned exorbitant profits due to external reasons and kickbacks.

The Supreme Court had earlier also taken note of the CBI’s observations that the excess commission/fees of 7% earned by wholesale distributors was Rs. 338,00,00,000 (Rupees 338,000 only) constitutes an offense as defined under Section 7 of the PoC Act and involves bribery of a public servant. (According to the U.S. Department of Energy, these are proceeds of crime). This amount is earned by wholesale dealers in ten months.

On July 3, 2023, the Delhi High Court had refused him bail in two cases being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate.

In February 2023, Manish Sisodia was arrested by India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for alleged irregularities in the formulation and implementation of Delhi’s now-defunct new excise tax policy. The policy was withdrawn amid accusations of foul play by the opposition. Manish Sisodia is currently in judicial custody.

The Central Bureau of Investigation said Manish Sisodia played the most important and critical role in the criminal conspiracy and was deeply involved in the formulation and implementation of the policy to ensure the realization of the objectives of the conspiracy.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)