Excise Policy Case: Delhi High Court grants bail to two businessmen; all accused now on bail

The Delhi High Court Tuesday granted bail to two businessmen in the money laundering case connected to the Delhi Excise Policy scam [Amit Arora vs. Directorate Of Enforcement and Amandeep Singh Dhall vs. Directorate Of Enforcement]..Justice Neena Bansal Krishna had reserved the orders on bail applications of Amit Arora, a director of Buddy Retail Private Limited, and Amandeep Singh Dhall, director of Brindco Sales Private Limited, on August 30 and September 3, respectively. ED had arrested Arora on November 29, 2022 and Dhall on March 1, 2023.Arora had already been on interim bail on medical grounds. Today, the Court granted him and Dhall regular bail.With the latest orders, all the accused in the case probed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) have managed to get bail.Earlier, the High Court had also ordered release of businessman Sameer Mahendru and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) volunteer Chanpreet Singh Rayat..Pertinently, the two accused have got bail days after the Supreme Court granted relief to the main accused including Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, former Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and others. Dhall had sought bail on the principle of parity. During an earlier hearing of the case, his counsel had relied upon Supreme Court's decision in Sisodia's case. The top court in that ruling had observed trial courts and High Courts attempt to play safe in the matters of grant of bail..The case involves allegations that several AAP leaders were involved in deliberately leaving loopholes in the excise policy in exchange for kickbacks from liquor lobbies. The investigation agencies have alleged that the funds garnered from this exercise were used to fund the AAP's election campaign in Goa.The ED registered a case against the accused under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) on the basis of a case registered by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in 2022. .Senior Advocates Dayan Krishnan and Siddharth Aggarwal along with advocates Tanveer Ahmed Mir, Vedanta Varma, Adit Pujari, Shashwat Sarin, Shaurya and Manvinder Singh Shekhawat appeared for Amandeep Singh Dhall.Senior Advocate Vikas Pahwa and advocates Prabhav Ralli, Namisha Jain, Dev Vrat Arya, Yuvraj Bansal and Pranay Chitale appeared for Amit Arora.Special Counsel Zoheb Hossain, Panel Counsel Vivek Gurnani and advocates Kartik Sabharwal, Pranjal Tripathi and Kanishk Maurya appeared for ED.[Read Judgments]