Court sends AAP's Sanjay Singh to 5-day ED custody in Delhi liquor policy scam
New Delhi/IBNS: A Delhi court Thursday sent Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Sanjay Singh to the Enforcement Directorate custody for five days, a day after he was arrested in a money laundering case related to the now-scrapped liquor policy.
The probe agency told the court that a businessman had given Rs. 3 crore to Singh and this sum was part of the money trail in the Delhi liquor policy case.
The ED's submission was based on the statements of Delhi businessman Dinesh Arora, an accused in the liquor policy case who has now turned an approver.
The probe agency told the court that it had seized digital evidence from the AAP MP's premises and would confront him. It alleged that the money was delivered by Sarvesh, an employee of Arora. "There is a direct link to proceeds of crime," the ED counsel told the court.
Sanjay Singh's counsel said Arora is an accused who has turned into an approver. "Dinesh Arora was arrested by the same ED. Now he has turned approver," he said, adding that Singh had never been summoned in the case earlier.
"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?" his counsel asked.
Responding to why Singh has been arrested now, the ED said Arora's statement about giving Rs. 2 crore to the AAP leader was recorded in August.
On the accused-turned-approver charge of the AAP leader's counsel, 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 was arrested on Thursday following day-long searches at his residence. He is the second senior 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.
Sisodia, who was arrested in February, is fighting for bail in the Supreme Court, which today fielded tough questions to the ED.