Delhi Excise Policy case: ED opposes Sanjay Singh's bail plea, says he is "influential"
Dec 09, 2023
New Delhi [India], December 9 : The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Saturday opposed the bail plea of AAP MP Sanjay Singh during a hearing at Rouse Avenue Court
The agency said, "Three documents were recovered from him that were not part of the judicial record. It shows that he is an influential person and got those documents."
It was also submitted by the ED that there is evidence of bribe demand, statements and some recovered documents.
Special Judge MK Nagpal adjourned the hearing after hearing the arguments of the special counsel for ED. The court has listed the matter for rebuttal arguments by the defence counsel on December 12.
MP Sanjay Singh is in custody in the Delhi Excise Policy money laundering case. He was arrested on October 4, 2023.
Advocates Zoheb Hossain and Naveen Kumar Matta appeared for ED.
Special counsel Zoheb Hossain argued that a liquor policy was being formulated and in lieu of that, bribes were being given and accepted all the way to the SC.
During his arguments, he also referred to the High Court order in Satyendra Jain's case that Court has to see the past trend and attendant circumstances."
He further argued there are statements under Section 50 of the PMLA that are to be considered while deciding the bail application.
On the point of past trends, he referred to the statement of Tushar Mehra, owner of Anant Wines, who said that Sarvesh Mishra was demanding bribes for the liquor business in Punjab on behalf of Sanjay Singh.
The special counsel also submitted that in the material we have, Alpha (protected witness) has confirmed that he has given money to Sarvesh Mishra.
He further argued that there is a statement in Dinesh Arora's 164 statements that was given without any pressure or influence.
Special counsel Zoheb referred to the SC judgment in Suresh Chandra Bahri, where it said that inducement is necessary to turn an accused into an approver. SC recognises that some degree of inducement is implicit.
"Merely because he has not named somebody earlier does not make it that if he has named them at a later stage when a valid reason has been given. He has said that these are powerful people and there was a threat. There is an acceptable reason that he has given, the ED's counsel argued.
Zoheb Hossain submitted that certain documents were found from Sanjay Singh. The documents found on him were photographs of the documents. The signature shown in the photo shows the source of the documents, which are not on court records.
It showed that a person showing that he has not to do anything with the scam is keeping an eye on the documents. This shows the influence of the petitioner. It shows that he can get documents from an ongoing investigation through his power, the counsel argued.
Special counsel further argued that Sanjay Singh's name was rightly used in three places and in one place it was a typing error.
At the outset, the court expressed its displeasure with counsels for Sanjay Singh over playing patriotic songs at the AAP office on the day of the hearing of Sanjay Singh.
The court said that the songs played for an entire day and created a lot of disturbance.
The counsel said that they are patriotic people; that's why they play patriotic Singh and on the last date, it was the death anniversary of Dr Ambedkar.
The court asked why only on the day of the hearing, their patriotism awakes?
