Delhi High Court dismisses Manish Sisodia’s bail pleas
Satya Prakash
New Delhi, May 21
Holding that the possibility of evidence-tampering by him could not be ruled out, the Delhi High Court on Tuesday dismissed bail pleas of former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia in corruption and money laundering cases lodged by the CBI and the ED in connection with the excise policy case. “This court is of the opinion that petitioner has not been able to make out a case for grant of bail in his favour,” Justice Swarna Kanta Sharma said, dismissing Sisodia’s bail pleas. Pointing out that Sisodia was a powerful and influential person who had the responsibility of 18 ministries, the high court said many witnesses were public servants and had given statements against him and the possibility of the accused trying to influence them could not be ruled out.
The case exemplified grave abuse of public authority and breach of public trust by Sisodia, Justice Sharma said, castigating him for framing a policy to enrich private persons. The material collected by the probe agencies showed that Sisodia subverted the process of making the excise policy by fabricating public feedback to suit his goal, the HC said.
Sisodia’s conduct amounted to “great betrayal of democratic principles”, Justice Sharma said, adding that he sought to manipulate the policy formulation and deviated from the report of an expert committee constituted by him.
The high court also rejected his allegations against the probe agencies and the trial court of delaying the trial even as it said the trial court’s observation that there was a concerted effort on part of the accused to delay the trial was not justified. Maintaining that it was not the right stage to grant bail, a Delhi special court had on April 30 dismissed Sisodia’s bail pleas in corruption and money laundering cases for alleged irregularities in the formulation and implementation of the excise policy of 2021-22.
A Delhi special court on Tuesday extended Sisodia’s judicial custody till May 31.
