Manish Sisodia Bail | 'If Bribery Isn't There In Predicate Offence, Difficult To Prove PMLA Case' : Supreme Court Reserves Judgment

The Supreme Court on Tuesday reserved for order the bail plea of former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia who is facing money laundering and corruption charges over alleged irregularities in the framing and implementation of a now-scrapped liquor policy in the national capital. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader has been in custody since February of this year and is being investigated by both the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Directorate of Enforcement (ED).A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and SVN Bhatti has been hearing Sisodia’s pleas against the Delhi High Court denying him bail in both the CBI and ED cases. The apex court issued notice in his petitions last month, on July 14.In the final arguments that took place today, Senior Advocate Dr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi appearing for Sisodia submitted that there was no allegation of bribery against Sisodia in the CBI predicate offence under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). "If there is no predicate offence, ED can't be there" he said. He submitted that the allegation of bribe of 220 crore with regard to the modification of the liqour policy with regard to airport licences, is not part of the predicate offence. “Without the predicate offence, this 220 is nothing. I am not on the amount, I'm on the concept,” he said.Justice Khanna then turned to the Additional Solicitor General SV Raju and said :"Mr Raju, if it is not part of the predicate offence, that this bribe was paid, you may be in difficultly in proving PMLA. If you had said bribe of 2.2 crores was paid for tweaking the policy, yes. But you cannot create a predicate offence in your PMLA case. We cannot go on an assumption. Whatever protection is given in the law will be fully extended. If protection is not there, its not there.” The ASG responded to this by arguing that as per Section 66 (2) of the PMLA, the ED can intimate the jurisdictional police about any new information. To which Justice Khanna responded, "but you have not done it, so we will not go on presumption".Singhvi argued that the generation of proceeds of crime occurs only in the predicate offence as per the Vijay Madanlal Chaudhary judgment. "ED, of all people, wants Vijay Madanlal Chaudhary judgment to be reconsidered?", he said. Singhvi also said that the ED as a premier investigative agency is bound to be transparent.Notably, in the beginning of the hearing, the ASG had read out a line from the Vijay Madanlal Choudhary judgment that said that bail as per Sec 45 PMLA can be given only in a "genuine case".During today's hearing, the ASG also informed the Court that the trial can be finished in 9 to 12 months. "You can't keep me behind bars with 500 witnesses and 50,000 documents in the interim when the trial is to start and when there is no evidence linking me" Singhvi exclaimed. Singhvi also argued the liquor policy was a result of "institutional, multi-layered decision making process spread over a year". He submitted that there was nothing directly linking Sisodia to the proceeds of crime and that he was not a flight sick and hence he deserved to be out on bail. Singhvi told the Court that the allegation is that the policy itself was made to defraud, however, he argued that the policy was made in a transparent manner after deliberations by several committees and approved by the then LG. He argued that the ED's claim that the liquor policy resulted in an increase of prices was wrong. Singhvi refuted this and submitted that after the liquor policy was introduced, the price offered to customers actually decreased.The allegation against Sisodia says that he pressurised excise officials to give licence to the company IndoSpirit. 'Indospirit's 12% profit margin for the policy period was Rs 192 crore and all endeavours were made that Indospirit gets this' ASG SV Raju had told the Court in yesterday's hearing. In today's hearing, Singhvi also submitted that there was nothing to show that Sisodia insisted on the license being given to Indospirts violating the law. "Admittedly, there is no money trail found against me. What they say is that a company generated profits and since it is the policy which was created by me which helped the company, I am involved. That is too far fetched" Singhvi said on the Indospirits allegation. Yesterday, the ASG had claimed that Sisodia had tampered with evidence by discarding a mobile phone that has allegedly not yet been recovered. "Ministers change their phones. It is a ministerial phone. And it was discarded before the registration of FIR. It becomes a tampering of evidence?" Singhvi said in Court today. Pervious HearingsEarlier this month, Singhvi, appearing for the embattled legislator, argued that no money trail directly implicating Sisodia, a sitting legislative assembly member and former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister, has been unearthed. No evidence, he further argued, linked Sisodia with the independent offence of money laundering in Section 3 of the Prevention of...

Manish Sisodia Bail | 'If Bribery Isn't There In Predicate Offence, Difficult To Prove PMLA Case' : Supreme Court Reserves Judgment

Sheryl Sebastian

"You cannot create a predicate offence in your PMLA case," Court told the ED.

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