Delhi excise case: Court dismisses businessman Amit Arora's interim bail plea

A Delhi court on Thursday dismissed an application moved by businessman Amit Arora seeking interim bail in a money laundering case related to the alleged Delhi excise scam. Arora, the director of Gurugram-based Buddy Retail Private Limited, moved the application on the ground that his wife required surgery for removal of gallbladder stones.

Special Judge M K Nagpal said that the applicant's wife should first plan the surgery and obtain a date from the hospital for that purpose, only then this court can consider his request for grant of interim bail.

''The wife of applicant may further be first required to undergo the requisite tests, if any, to find out her suitability in medical terms for performance of the surgery,'' the judge said.

The judge said that though the accused may be entitled to interim bail on humanitarian grounds for some duration on the ground of proposed surgery, the relief could not be granted in a routine or casual manner and further, ''the circumstances under which this interim bail is to be granted have to be exceptional and extraordinary''.

The Enforcement Directorate opposed the application, saying that the surgery of patient was not an emergent procedure and it had to be planned and that the planning for surgery was required to be made as early as possible.

Arora was arrested by the ED under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) on November 29 last year and is currently in judicial custody.

The ED's money laundering case stems from a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) FIR.

The CBI, in its first charge sheet in the case, claimed that Arora, along with co-accused Dinesh Arora and Arjun Pandey, is a close associate of Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and the three were actively involved in ''managing'' and ''diverting'' the undue pecuniary advantage collected from liquor licensees for the accused public servants.

The CBI has also got Dinesh Arora to turn approver in the case.

It had alleged that the Delhi government, with its now-scrapped Excise Policy 2021-22 to grant licences to liquor traders, favoured certain dealers who had allegedly paid bribes for it, a charge strongly refuted by the ruling AAP.

Besides Sisodia, who holds the excise portfolio in the Delhi government, the CBI had named the then excise commissioner Arava Gopi Krishna, the then deputy excise commissioner Anand Kumar Tiwari, assistant excise commissioner Pankaj Bhatnagar, nine businessmen, and two companies as accused in its FIR filed on August 17.

In the FIR, the agency has alleged that Sisodia and other accused public servants recommended and took decisions pertaining to the Delhi Excise Policy 2021-22 without the approval of the competent authority with ''an intention to extend undue favours to the licencees post tender''.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)