Excise case: Court grants ED five-day custody of Singh

A Delhi court on Thursday remanded Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) parliamentarian Sanjay Singh to Enforcement Directorate (ED) custody for five days, a day after he was arrested in connection with alleged irregularities in Delhi's now-scrapped excise policy.

- Deepankar Malviya

Singh's "sustained and custodial" interrogation was necessitated based on the allegations ED levelled against him and the material it placed on record, said the court, adding that these also suggested "direct nexus with activities pertaining to proceeds of crime by way of receiving ₹2 crore".

"In view of the totality of the facts and circumstances, the accused is being remanded to the custody of ED till 10.10.2023 for the purposes of his detailed and sustained interrogation and confrontations with the oral and documentary evidence", said special judge MK Nagpal in the order passed on Thursday evening.

While being brought to the courtroom, Singh said his arrest was an act of injustice by Prime Minister Narendra Modi whose party, the AAP leader said, was going to lose the next Lok Sabha elections.

ED arrested Singh, 51, on Wednesday from his residence after a raid at his residence for allegedly playing a key role in procuring favours for himself and certain businessmen by influencing the 2021-22 excise policy.

The agency sought his custody for 10 days, submitting that Singh was directly related to ₹2 crore as "proceeds of crime", a charge it said was corroborated by Dinesh Arora, an accused in the case who has turned approver, and call detail records.