We are considering making AAP an accused in Delhi excise policy case: ED to SC

“We are contemplating making the Aam Aadmi Party an accused and invoking Section 70 (of Prevention of Money Laundering Act) to probe it additionally with respect to vicarious liability,” he said.

As the bench, also comprising Justice S V N Bhatti, asked if the AAP would be made an accused in the same offence or a separate one, the ASG replied it would be the same. But the court asked him to get instructions and inform it Tuesday.

Taking exception to the submission that it was planning to make AAP accused, senior advocate A M Singhvi said “the last sentence by my learned friend, Your Lordships will see the effect in tomorrow’s papers. That is the purpose”.

Hearing the matter on October 4, Justice Khanna pointed out that as per the ED’s case, the recipient of the proceeds of crime was “a political party” and not Sisodia, and asked why the party was not made an accused then.

“As far as PMLA is concerned, your whole case is that it went to a political party. That political party is still not an accused. How do you answer that? He is not the beneficiary, the political party is the beneficiary,” Justice Sanjeev Khanna asked.

Hearing it again on October 5, the bench clarified that that it was only a legal question and not meant to implicate anyone. “We want to clarify that our question yesterday was not to implicate anyone. Suppose if as per the prosecution, if A who is a beneficiary is not being prosecuted, can B or C be prosecuted? In that context, the question was posed as a legal question,” the judge explained.

Justice Khanna clarified this after Singhvi pointed out that newspapers had reported the query as if the court wanted investigative agencies to make the AAP an accused and that the papers had also reported that ED was planning to add the party as an accused in the matter.

Responding to Singhvi’s submission then, Justice Khanna said there were two things to it. “One in court, we ask questions. We want answers because when he (ASG Raju) showed us the chart, there was a name. Number two, we don’t get influenced by the media. I did go through the papers. It’s not going to affect us”.