AAP MLA Durgesh Pathak named in CBI excise policy chargesheet

The CBI had earlier filed a main chargesheet and four supplementaries in the case, in which former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, Telangana MLC K Kavitha and 15 others have also been charged.

In the fresh chargesheet, the CBI has named Kejriwal, Pathak, non-executive director of Aurobindo Pharma P Sarath Chandra Reddy, director of Buddy Retail Pvt Ltd Amit Arora, alleged hawala operator Vinod Chauhan and businessman Ashish Mathur as accused.

In March this year, a remand application filed by the ED in Delhi’s Rouse Avenue Court had alleged that the ‘South Group’ — including politicians, businessmen and middlemen based in South India — paid kickbacks to gain undue benefits from the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy. The AAP is alleged to have funnelled these kickbacks towards its campaign in the run-up to the Goa Assembly elections in 2022. The ED alleged that the money reached Goa through a network of hawala transactions.

Pathak was the party’s Goa in-charge during the 2022 Assembly elections in the state.

In April this year, Pathak, along with Kejriwal’s private secretary Bibhav Kumar, was questioned by the ED in the related PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) case. He was first questioned in September 2022.

Known to be close to Kejriwal and Sisodia, Pathak is part of the AAP’s Political Affairs Committee. As the party’s MLA from Rajinder Nagar, where the Rau’s IAS Study Circle is located, he is also facing criticism over the deaths of the three civil services aspirants. He is also the AAP’s in-charge for the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD).