New Delhi: A Delhi court on Wednesday extended businessman Amit Arora’s remand to the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) for seven days. Arora is the director of Gurugram-based Buddy Retail and was arrested by the ED last month in connection with the liquor policy case.
During the hearing in the Rouse Avenue court, the ED had argued that further custodial interrogation is needed to investigate the money trail as Arora, a close associate of Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, was “directly involved” in the framing of the excise policy and cartelisation.
Special Judge NK Nagpal passed the order on a plea moved by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) as the accused was produced before the court after the expiry of his seven-day custody.
A total of five people have been arrested by the ED in the Delhi Excise policy money laundering case till now. Liquor businessman Sameer Mahandru was arrested by the ED on September 27 following his questioning.
The ED’s money laundering case stems from a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) FIR and so far, the financial probe agency has undertaken 169 search operations in the case. The CBI FIR was registered on the recommendation of the Delhi Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena.
The CBI had earlier alleged that Amit Arora, Dinesh Arora and Arjun Pandey were “close associates” of Sisodia and were “actively involved in managing and diverting the undue pecuniary advantage collected from liquor licensees” for the accused public servants.