Father of Delhi excise 'scam' accused caught on 'sting tape'

The statement of Sunny Marwah, an accused in the Delhi excise policy case, has been recorded and he has given important information about the modus operandi of those named in the first information report (FIR) in connection with the liquor 'scam', Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officials said on Monday.

Marwah's father was allegedly caught spilling the beans about the alleged scam in a purported sting video released by the Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday.

During the investigation, the CBI questioned Marwah on some of the points that came up in the utterances of his father during the 'sting operation', the officials said.

The BJP released the 'sting operation' video purportedly showing Kulvinder Marwah, the father of Sunny Marwah, claiming to have paid commissions to acquire liquor licences in Delhi.

"The modus operandi as revealed in the video is that 80 per cent of the profit will go to (Chief Minister Arvind) Kejriwal, (Deputy Chief Minister) Manish Sisodia and their friends. First, you give us our 80-per cent commission and then sell the 20 per cent however you can, we do not care. This has been the policy of Kejriwal," BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra alleged at a press conference in New Delhi.

Responding to the BJP's sting operation claim, Sisodia said the CBI found nothing at his house and in his bank locker and gave him a 'clean chit'.

"The CBI has given me a clean chit as it did not get anything. That is why the BJP is coming up with these tactics. This is not a sting operation, this is just a joke," he said.

The Aam Aadmi Party leader also said the BJP may make someone sitting in a car say something but that does not make it a sting operation.

"This is just a joke. I can also share many such sting operations and you should publish those," he told reporters.

In a statement on Monday, the CBI said the excise policy case is under investigation and 'no clean chit has been given to any of the accused'.

The CBI FIR alleges that Marwah's Mahadev Liquors was granted the L-1 licence under the new excise policy for Delhi.

The businessman, who was on the board of firms owned by deceased liquor baron Ponty Chadha, was in close contact with the accused public servants and regularly paid bribes to them, the federal probe agency has alleged.

The CBI has also questioned the other accused in the case, including Amit Arora, the director of Buddy Retail Private Limited in Gurugram and a 'close associate' of Sisodia.

The questioning of the accused is going on at a fast pace and the agency recently got a locker opened in a private bank in south Delhi, which belongs to a person alleged to be close to Sisodia, the officials said.

According to the CBI FIR, at least two payments running into crores were allegedly made to Sisodia's 'close associates' by Sameer Mahendru, the owner of Indospirits, who was one of the liquor traders allegedly involved in irregularities in the framing and implementation of the excise policy.

The FIR alleges that Sisodia's 'close associates' Amit Arora, Dinesh Arora and Arjun Pandey were 'actively involved in managing and diverting the undue pecuniary advantage collected from liquor licensees' for the accused public servants.

It said Radha Industries, managed by Dinesh Arora, allegedly received Rs 1 crore from Mahendru.

Pandey, also an associate of Sisodia, had once collected cash amounting to about Rs 2-4 crore from Mahendru on behalf of Vijay Nair, the former CEO of Only Much Louder, an entertainment and event management company, the FIR alleges.

The CBI has invoked the Indian Penal Code (IPC) section related to criminal conspiracy and provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act in its FIR filed against 15 entities -- Sisodia, former excise commissioner Arava Gopi Krishna, former deputy excise commissioner Anand Tiwari, assistant excise commissioner Pankaj Bhatnagar, nine businessmen and two companies.