Excise ‘Scam’: Delhi Court Extends AAP Leader Sanjay Singh’s Judicial Custody Till Dec. 11

A Delhi court on Monday extended till Dec. 11 the judicial custody of Aam Aadmi Party leader Sanjay Singh in a money laundering case related to the alleged excise policy scam.

Special Judge M K Nagpal also directed the Enforcement Directorate to hand over a copy of the supplementary charge sheet filed against Singh to his lawyer, noting that arguments on his bail application will take place on Dec. 6.

During the proceedings on Monday, the ED moved an application stating that the names of certain protected witnesses had been mentioned in the supplementary charge sheet “by mistake” and urged the court to keep the documents in a sealed cover.

The court allowed the ED to remove portions mentioning the names of protected witnesses.

The judge put up the matter for arguments on Dec. 6 and directed the court staff to keep the file sealed till then.

The ED filed a supplementary prosecution complaint (ED’s equivalent of a supplementary charge sheet) against Singh and his alleged associate Sarvesh Mishra in the case past Saturday.

During the hearing, Singh accused the central probe agency of “leaking” the details of the charge sheet to the media.

“Here they are saying that it should be kept in sealed cover, while every news organisation has reported the details of the charge sheet,” he told the judge, while handing him a copy of a newspaper.

The judge went through the news article and said the details mentioned in the report were old.

“There is nothing new in this report. Everything is from the remand papers that were filed by the agency earlier,” the judge said.

The anti-money laundering agency had arrested Singh on Oct. 4. The ED has alleged that Singh played a key role in the formulation and implementation of the now scrapped policy, which benefited certain liquor manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers, for monetary considerations.

Singh has refuted the allegations.