Delhi Excise case of CBI: Trial Court reserves order on regular bail plea of five accused including two former Excise Department officials

New Delhi: The Rouse Avenue Court on Friday reserved an order on the regular bail petition of five accused including two former Excise Department officials in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) case of the Delhi Government Excise police case.
The Court earlier had granted them interim bail in the case. All the five accused were not arrested by the investigating agency during the probe. The Special Judge MK Nagpal on Friday reserved the order on the bail pleas moved by Sameer Mahendru, Kuldeep Singh, Narender Singh, Arun Ramchandra Pillai, and Mootha Goutam in the Delhi Liquor Excise Policy Case, being investigated by CBI. The court fixed the date of February 28, 2023, for the pronouncement of the order.
Earlier, the Court had granted interim bail to two former Excise Department officials Kuldeep Singh and Narender Singh. The Court had also granted bail to Gautam Mootha and Arun Pillai and Businessman Sameer Mahendru.
Two accused Vijay Nair and Abhishek Boinpally were already granted bail earlier by the same court.
Sameer Mahendru, Vijay Nair and Abhishek Boinpally remained in Judicial custody as they were also arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) Excise Money Laundering case and their Bail petition is pending before the trial court.
The CBI recently filed a chargesheet against seven accused persons and out of these seven only the accused Vijay Nair & Abhishek Bonipally are found to have been arrested.
Bail granted to both of them is under challenge before HC. Chargesheet against five other accused is filed without arrest, noted the court.
Recently, CBI challenged the trial court order granting bail to Vijay Nair and Abhishek Boinpally in Delhi High Court.
CBI's Petition stated that the trial court Judge has not only granted a concession of bail to the respondent accused in an extremely serious and wide-ranging economic offence but this discretion has been exercised at a very crucial stage of the investigation.
Investigation Agency submits that of the seven tests prescribed by the Supreme Court to test any discretionary order dealing with bail has not been complied with in the present case.
It is also submitted that the present case is a case of a conspiracy sought to be carried out in an extremely convoluted manner with a clear purpose of making an attempt that the investigation if any, does not reach the real culprits.
According to the CBI, it commenced an investigation and unearthed the conspiracy led by the present applicant who was collecting money from private liquor wholesalers in lieu of getting favourable changes made in the Excise Policy of 2021.
The Rouse Avenue Court on Thursday rejected the bail petitions of five accused who were arrested in the money laundering probe emerging out of the Delhi government's now scrapped excise policy.
While rejecting the bail plea, the court noted that none of the accused deserves to be released on bail in this case at this stage of proceedings as the allegations made against them are quite serious.
The Special Judge MK Nagpal while rejecting the bail plea of Vijay Nair, Abhishek Bonipally, Sameer Mahendru, Sarath P Reddy and Binoy Babu observed that the accused persons do not even satisfy the triple test as laid down in the case of P Chidambaram vs Directorate of Enforcement being relied upon by Defence Counsels.
The FIR in the case was instituted on a reference from the Union Home Ministry following a recommendation from Delhi Lieutenant-Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena. (ANI)