The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday questioned Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia for almost nine hours. They investigated him in connection with the alleged scam in excise policy being probed by it. Sisodia had arrived at the CBI agency headquarters around 11.15am on Monday and was taken straight to the first floor of the anti-corruption branch, officials said.
For the unversed, CBI had registered an FIR in a special court in Delhi in the month of August against Sisodia and 14 others under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 477A (falsification of records), and section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, that deals with having undue advantage to influence a public servant by illegal means, or by the exercise of personal influence.
During the investigation, Sisodia claimed that he was pressured very much to leave the Aam Aadmi Party and was offered Delhi chief minister’s post. “Pressure was put on me to quit AAP. I was offered Delhi CM’s post or face jail term,” he said.
He added, “Today I saw in the CBI office that there’s no issue of any scam. The whole case is fake. I understood all that in the nine-hour-questioning today. The case isn’t to probe any scam against me, but to make ‘Operation Lotus’ successful in Delhi, BJP says there is a Rs 10,000 crore excise scam. I found at the CBI office that there is no scam and the case is fake. The fake case against me is a conspiracy to make BJP’s ‘Operation Lotus’ a success in Delhi,”.
As per the official reports, CBI will evaluate all the answers given by Sisodia and if required, he will be summoned again later.