A team of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) reached Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s residence late in the evening after the Delhi High Court rejected its plea to stay his arrest. The ED team has reached CM Kejriwal’s residence with a search warrant and his bungalow is being searched. Former Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi Manish Sisodia and AAP MP Sanjay Singh are already in jail in this case. In such a situation, now the sword of arrest is also hanging on CM Kejriwal. Amidst all these developments, it is also important to know what is the liquor scam after all? What was the new liquor policy and how are there allegations of corruption in it?
What is Delhi’s new liquor policy?
The Delhi government had implemented the new liquor policy on November 17, 2021. Under this policy, the capital was divided into 32 zones and 27 shops were to be opened in each zone. As many as 849 liquor shops were to be opened across Delhi. As per this policy, all government vends were closed and all liquor shops were privatised. Earlier, 60 per cent of liquor shops in Delhi were government and 40 per cent private. After the implementation of the new policy, all 100 per cent liquor shops were made private. The Delhi government argued that it would benefit Rs 3500 crore.
Not only this, the Delhi government had also increased the license fee of liquor shops several times. Earlier, Rs 25 lakh was required to get an L-1 licence. After the new policy was implemented, the contractors had to pay Rs five crore for it.
Similarly, the license fee for other categories was also increased more than required.
He alleged that the government’s new policy led to a huge shortfall in revenue. Earlier, a 750 ml bottle of liquor was available for Rs 530. The retailer used to earn a profit of Rs 33.35 on the bottle, while the government used to get Rs 223.89 as excise tax and Rs 106 as VAT. Accordingly, the government used to get a benefit of Rs 329.89 on each bottle. After the new policy of the government, the price of a 750 ml bottle was increased from Rs 530 to Rs 560. With this, the profit of Retail Karobi increased from Rs 33.35 to Rs 363.27 directly. That is, the retail traders started benefiting 10 times directly. At the same time, the benefit of Rs 329.89 to the government was reduced to 3.78 paise. This includes Rs 1.88 excise duty and Rs 1.90 VAT.
The ED had issued the first summons to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on November 2 last year.
The summons was issued under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. In the chargesheet, the ED has alleged that Kejriwal was in touch with the accused when the Excise Policy 2021-2022 was being prepared. The ED also claimed to have recorded the statement of Buchi Babu, the accountant of Bharatiya Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader K Kavitha, in the case. Buchi Babu has given a statement that there was a conversation between K Kavitha, Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia in the past. Not only this, Kavita also met Vijay Nair in March 2021. Dinesh Arora, who was arrested in the case, had told the ED that he had met Kejriwal at his residence. Several meetings were also held between YSR Congress MP Manguta Srinivasulu Reddy and Kejriwal, it said. After this, CM Kejriwal had welcomed Reddy’s entry into the liquor business of Delhi.