CBI registers FIR against Manish Sisodia and seven others in ‘Feedback Unit’ snooping case

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Thursday registered an FIR against former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and seven others over alleged irregularities in the Delhi Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government’s ‘Feedback Unit’ (FBU) snooping case, reported The Indian Express.

The central probe agency had registered a case on March 14, after the Ministry of Home Affairs led by Union Home Minister Amit Shah gave its sanction to prosecute the former Delhi deputy CM, who is also an accused in the Delhi Excise Policy 2021-22 case, and is currently lodged in Tihar jail.

The accused have been booked on charges of criminal conspiracy, dishonest misappropriation of property, criminal breach of trust by a public servant, forgery for the purpose of cheating, using as genuine a forged document, falsification of accounts, and criminal misconduct by a public servant.

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The CBI alleged that the FBU started functioning on February 1, 2016 with 17 contractual employees most of whom were retired Intelligence Bureau and Central Paramilitary Force officials, whose objective was to allegedly spy over different ministries, Opposition political parties, entities and individuals. The CBI alleged that the unit had no legislative or judicial oversight.

The unit began incurring expenditure for “operations” in February 2016, and a provision of Rs 1 crore was set aside for ‘Secret Service Expenditure’ for it in the Delhi government’s budget for the Financial Year 2016-17. A ‘Secret Service Fund’ was kept in a chest that could only be opened by turning two keys simultaneously, and bankrolled cash payments for “secret operations” made to “sources” for these. An ‘S’ followed by a number denoting the FBU operative to whom this amount had been paid was scrawled on an unofficial register against the date of payment as a record of each payment, as per IE report.

The CBI request to file a case against Sisodia over the FBU snooping had received a nod from Delhi Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena. The proposal to create the FBU was allegedly moved in September 2015 and approved in October 2015 by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal without a cabinet note, internal documents of the vigilance department and the CBI showed.