The Enforcement Directorate (ED) may initiate a money laundering investigation over the framing and execution of the Aam Aadmi Party government's excise policy, official sources said on Friday after the Central Bureau of Investigation raided Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and others in the matter.
The officials said the members of the South Lobby, which wanted to swing the policy in its favour with exorbitant profits for liquor wholesalers, had stayed in the hotel in the national capital from March 14 to 17 in 2021 and used its business centre to make photocopies of some documents.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday raided the home of Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and 30 other locations in connection with alleged corruption in the implementation of the Delhi Excise Policy.
The central probe agency has got an alleged 'close associate' of Sisodia -- Dinesh Arora -- to spill beans by turning approver in the case, they said.
The CBI on Sunday deferred the questioning of Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia in connection with the Delhi Excise policy scam case after he sought time from the probe agency citing the city government's ongoing budget exercise.
From small restaurants to mighty software companies, it is businesses, not the government, that create jobs. Yet, in a cruel irony, they have to fight extortive and brutal State power every step of the way, says Debashis Basu.
The AAP claimed that Sisodia would be arrested on Monday and alleged the move was initiated in view of the forthcoming assembly elections in Gujarat where it is in a direct contest with the BJP.
Sisodia was arrested after nearly eight hours of questioning on various aspects of the excise policy for 2021-22, which the probe agency says suffered from irregularities both in its formulation and implementation, allegedly intended to benefit people with links to the AAP.
Five days after the induction of 18 ministers into his cabinet, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Sunday allocated portfolios, keeping Urban Development and 11 other ministries with himself, while giving the crucial Home Department to Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis.
Goa excise commissioner Narayan Gad on Monday heard arguments over a complaint against a restaurant, which the Congress claimed was linked to Union minister Smriti Irani's daughter.
Chief Minister Amarinder Singh suspended seven excise officials and six policemen, officials said.
I was offered Delhi CM's post or face jail term, Sisodia said.
In a bid to ramp up anti-COVID-19 vaccination coverage in Maharashtra's Aurangabad district, authorities have ordered impounding of autorickshaws if their drivers are found to have not taken even a single jab.
The clean chit to Aryan Khan and five others by the Narcotics Control Bureau on Friday has once again brought the central agency's former zonal director Sameer Wankhede under the spotlight.
To ensure free, fair and transparent assembly elections next month in Punjab, the police have intensified search operations, especially in the border districts, to keep a vigil on illegal activities in vulnerable areas.
Sisodia said the growing enthusiasm among the people of Gujarat in supporting the AAP in Gujarat was the reason behind the CBI action against him.
In a statement, the lawyer of Irani's daughter, said his client is neither an owner nor operating the restaurant called Silly Souls Goa.
The death toll in the Malad hooch tragedy on Saturday climbed to 84 even as the Excise department suspended four of its officials in connection with the incident.
A division bench of Justices S S Shinde and N R Borkar said Wankhede shall appear before the Thane police on February 23 (Wednesday) pursuant to the summons issued to him and extend his full cooperation with the investigation.
The seizure of liquor has been a matter of concern for the EC since it apprehends that the liquor might be used to influence the voters.
In a major goof-up, the Maharashtra government has appointed two senior officials to the top post in Excise Department, raising questions over coordination among various concerned departments.
Steel makers in Punjab has termed the excise duty demand raised by the central excise department as unjustified and has sought intervention of the chairman of Central Board of Excise and Customs in the matter.
Maharashtra NCP minister Nawab Malik on Monday claimed that Narcotics Control Bureau's zonal director Sameer Wankhede used forged documents including his birth certificate. Wankhede, an IRS officer of the 2008 batch, slammed the minister, saying his action was defamatory in nature and an invasion of his family's privacy.
The toll due to consumption of spurious liquor in the Malad area of Mumbai climbed to 94 with the death of four more persons on Sunday.
Empty bottles of liquor were discovered inside the premises of the legislature in dry Bihar, in a fresh embarrassment to the Nitish Kumar government in the state, which has been drawing flak over recent hooch tragedies that have claimed more than 40 lives.
In a furious post on his blog, senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Arun Jaitley on Tuesday slammed the Congress for allegedly using the Excise Department to impose a tax on the mammoth rallies addressed by the saffron party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.
These builders had collected the taxes from prospective buyers but had failed to deposit them.
Dr Zaheed Qureshi said that when his daughter Shabana married Sameer Wankhede, the latter practised Islam, and would occasionally visit mosques.
"We have raided and destroyed poppy crops in 24 acres of land under the Imamganj police station," Omprakash Singh, a senior official of the Excise Department, told rediff.com. Singh said the Maoist had cultivated opium to make money for their illegal activities and continue their operations against the police.
The government allowed sugar companies and distilleries to make hand sanitizers using ethanol. Sugar companies supply ethanol to oil marketing companies for blending with petrol.
At least 22 people died and seven others were taken ill after consuming spurious liquor in several villages of Mubarakpur area, leading to suspension of six policemen on Friday on charges of laxity.
Liquor shops reopened across the country in the non-containment zones after 40 days from Monday with people queuing up in large numbers, giving social distancing norms a toss at some places.
The order, issued by the Home Department, will come into effect only after guidelines are finalised, said a senior official.
In a relief to two-wheeler major Hero Honda Motors, a tax tribunal has ruled in favour of the company in a case filed by the Excise department for alleged duty evasion to the tune of Rs 2 crore (Rs 20 million).
Post-mortems of 16 more suspected hooch victims were conducted here in the last two days, raising their number to 87, but authorities on Wednesday kept the official death toll in tragedy pegged at 35.
With 13 more deaths, the toll in the hooch tragedy in several villages of Mubarakpur area of Azamgarh district in Uttar Pradesh on Saturday climbed to 35 even as Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav took serious note of the incident and suspended five excise department officials.
Shockingly, students of various schools and colleges were clients of Hyderabad drug peddlers.
A foreign national has been arrested by Pakistani security agencies in connection with the car bomb blast outside the house of the 2008 Mumbai terror attack mastermind and chief of the banned Jamat-ud-Dawa (JuD) Hafiz Saeed in Lahore, according to media reports.
While the two-phased assembly polls voting has concluded in Assam, in West Bengal two phases have completed while four more remain.
The Central Excise Department said it has slapped service tax of Rs 6 crore on the Preity Zinta co-owned KPH Dream Cricket, which is part owner of IPL franchise Kings XI Punjab.
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