The Enforcement Directorate on Friday said it has attached two immovable assets of former Delhi deputy Chief Minister and jailed Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Manish Sisodia and his wife in the Delhi excise policy money laundering case, prompting a sharp response from Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who saying that the ED move was “fake news”.
The probe agency has issued a provisional order under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) to attach assets worth Rs 52.24 crore of Sisodia, his wife Seema Sisodia, and some other accused who are being probed in the case, reports PTI. The 51-year-old former deputy CM was arrested by ED in connection with the case in March and is currently in judicial custody.
Two immovable properties of Manish Sisodia and his wife Seema Sisodia and a land/flat of arrested accused Rajesh Joshi — the director of Chariot Productions Media Pvt Ltd — have been attached, the ED said. It also attached a land/flat of Gautam Malhotra, a Punjab-based liquor businessman and son of former SAD MLA Deep Malhotra.
Movable assets worth Rs 44.29 crore were also attached as part of the same order. These included Manish Sisodia’s bank balances worth Rs 11.49 lakh apart from Rs 16.45 crore worth of deposits of a company Brindco Sales Pvt. Ltd. and others, the agency said in a statement.
Brindco Sales Pvt. Ltd. is a company of liquor businessman Amandeep Singh Dhall who was also arrested in this case by the ED.
In a tweet, Kejriwal said, “Prime Minister, when you did not find anything against Manish Sisodia, you started defaming him through ED. Your ED is running fake news on TV channels saying that assets worth Rs 52 crore of Manish Sisodia have been attached.”
In reality, the Rs 80 lakh worth of assets that have been attached belong to pre-2018 when the excise policy was not even framed, he claimed, adding that those were declared assets.
“People would not have thought that a day would come when the prime minister of a great country like India would try to eliminate his political rivals by lying openly. You know who is corrupt. If you have the guts, you should catch them,” Kejriwal said.
The attachments come months after the ED first attached properties worth Rs 76.54 crore of other accused such as AAP communications in-charge Vijay Nair, liquor businessman and promoter of Indospirits company Sameer Mahandru, promoter of liquor company Buddy Retail Pvt Ltd. Amit Arora, Hyderabad-based businessman Arun Pillai and others, in connection with the excise case.
Along with the ED, the CBI is also probing the case, and the ED case stems from the CBI FIR.