The Delhi court has extended judicial custody of Manish Sisodia, K Kavitha till July 25 in money laundering case related to alleged excise scam. Special Judge Kaveri Baweja extended their custody after they were produced before the court through video conference on the end of their judicial custody granted earlier. Apart from Sisodia, and Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader and former Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao's daughter K Kavitha, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, and several others, including liquor businessmen have been arrested by the federal agencies.
The ED and the CBI have alleged corruption and money laundering in the formulation and execution of the Delhi government's now-scrapped excise policy for 2021-22. Sisodia was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation on February 26, 2023, in the same case. He was also later arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in the money-laundering case.
On August 17, 2022, the Central Bureau of Investigation booked Sisodia and 14 others alleging irregularities in the liquor policy. The excise policy 2021-’22 was formulated on the basis of an expert committee report. Under the policy, licences of 849 liquor shops were issued to private firms through open bidding. Earlier, four government corporations ran 475 liquor stores and the remaining 389 were in private hands.