Sanjay Singh
New Delhi: After he was arrested yesterday by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) following day-long searches at his residence and on charges of money laundering related to the now-scrapped liquor policy of the Delhi Government, Delhi’s Rouse Avenue Court today remanded the Aam Aadmi Party’s Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh to five-day ED custody till October 10, 2023.
The ED based its submission before the court on the statements by Dinesh Arora, a city-based businessman who is an accused turned approver in the liquor policy case, and claimed Arora had given Rs. 3 crore to Singh which was part of the money trail in the Delhi liquor policy case. It alleged that the money was delivered by Sarvesh, an employee of Arora.
Pleading that Singh was never summoned in the case, his counsel argued that Arora was an accused who turned into an approver. “Dinesh Arora was arrested by the same ED. Now he has turned approver,” he said.
ED submitted that it had seized digital evidence from the premises of Singh and would confront him. “There is a direct link to proceeds of crime,” the ED counsel told the court.
Singh’s counsel however asked, “ED is saying they have conducted 239 searches. Is the ED saying that they are going to confront Sanjay Singh with the evidence collected from 239 searches?”
When the court asked why Singh was arrested now, the ED counsel said Arora’s statement about giving Rs. 2 crore to him was recorded in August 2023.
On the accused-turned-approver charge against Arora, the ED said, “Dinesh Arora is an approver based on a judicial order of this court. The argument that the statement of Dinesh Arora against Sanjay Singh taken due to inducement is pure imagination.”
Singh is the second prominent AAP leader to be arrested in connection with the alleged irregularities in the liquor policy case, after Delhi’s former Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, who was arrested in February and is fighting for bail in the Supreme Court.
– global bihari bureau
