The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday told the Delhi High Court that it will make the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) an accused in the money laundering case in the alleged Delhi Liquor policy scam. The ED’s counsel made this submissions while while opposing the bail petition of former Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia in the money laundering case.

“AAP is going to be made a co-accused in the next prosecution complaint (chargesheet) to be filed in the case.” ED’s counsel said.

A bench of Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma is hearing the submissions from ED, CBI and Manish Sisodia’s counsels in his bail plea.

ED argued on merits of the case while the Manish Sisodia’s counsel restricted his arguments to delay in trial and Supreme Court’s observation in October 2023 order rejecting bail to Manish Sisodia. 

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While seeking bail for him, Sisodia’s counsel submitted that the ED and the CBI are still arresting people in the money laundering and corruption case and there is no question of early conclusion of the trial as the trial has not even started.

ED however contended that the Supreme Court judgement says that delay in trial is just one factor to be considered while granting bail and the court can hear the case on merits.

Justice Sharma said that ED and Manish Sisodia’s counsel are reading the SC verdict in way that benefits them. She said, “You are reading it from the left while they are reading from the right.” 

CBI’s counsel also said that the delay is being caused by the accused in the trial and made further arguments of delay. 

Earlier in the day, Senior Advocate Dayan Krishnan appearing for Sisodia questioned the observations made by the trial court that Manish Sisodia along with other accused in the Delhi Liquor Policy case made concerted efforts to delay the trial. Notably, the high court also took an exception of the observations made by the trial court judge.

Sisodia’s counsel told the court that the trial court order states that a total of 38 applications were moved by the accused arrested in connection to Delhi Liquor Policy case to delay the case. Out of these 38, Manish Sisodia only filed 13 applications which included application to meet his ailing wife and clearing of check and a bank account, which were approved by the court itself.

“How can the court hold applications approved by it against me?” Krishnan asked on behalf of Sisodia. He further said that if these were frivolous applications then they should not have been allowed in the first place.

Last week, a special bench of Justice Kaveri Baweja of trial court rejected Sisodia bail pleas and observed, “…it is thus apparent that the Applicant individually, and along with different accused have been filing one or the other application/making oral submissions frequently, some of them frivolous, that too on a piecemeal basis, apparently as a concerted effort for accomplishing the shared purpose of causing delay in the matter. The argument of the Applicant that he has not contributed to delay in proceedings or that the case has been proceeding at a “snail’s pace”, therefore, cannot be accepted. The steady progression of the case, despite the apparent attempts to slow down its  progress, cannot, by any standards, be equated with ‘snail’s pace’.”