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Vijay Nair, former CEO of events company Only Much Louder (OML) and currently the communications incharge of the Aam Aadmi Party, was on Wednesday sent to five-day CBI custody by a Delhi court. Nair was on Tuesday arrested by the agency in connection with alleged irregularities in the Delhi excise policy case.
Special Judge MK Nagpal of Rouse Avenue court while granting five days custody observed that the investigation of the case is at a nascent stage and “detailed custodial interrogation of the accused is felt necessary not only to unearth the entire conspiracy, the roles played by different accused persons including the public servants, but also to trace out the trail of ill-gotten money which is alleged to have been paid to the accused public servants by way of commission”.
The court also said that though Nair is stated to have joined investigation on six different dates, but it is alleged that he is “not co-operative and has avoided to give reasonable replies to the questions put to him as he had been giving evasive replies to the same on different pretexts.”
The court stated that custodial interrogation of the accused is also felt necessary to confront him with the evidence and the nature of data deleted from his phone.
The CBI senior public prosecutor, Pankaj Gupta, had moved an application seeking seven-day police custody. He began his arguments by submitting that the agency seized two mobile phones that had been formatted. The CBI also submitted that they were investigating chats sent by Nair on Signal, which were encrypted.
Gupta submitted that this was a high-profile case involving high-profile people such as Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, and that Nair was “not cooperating, not answering” the investigators.
CBI said that Nair was actively involved in the formulation of the Delhi government’s liquor policy for the year 2021-22. The agency alleged that Nair was involved in “meeting with the other co-accused and liquor manufacturers as well as distributors in different hotels at Hyderabad, Mumbai and Delhi for arranging ill-gotten money through hawala operators/channels”.
The agency submitted that this was done for arranging 6% commission out of 12% profits from wholesale distributors of major brands of liquor in Delhi.
The agency submitted that Nair tried to “conceal true facts relating to the conspiracy, the roles played by the other co-accused, including public servants, as well as the trail of ill-gotten money received through hawala channels”.
The CBI stated that the accused had given “evasive replies to most of the questions put to him with regard to above aspects and had thus avoided replies thereto on some false pretexts”.
Senior advocate Rebecca John, who appeared on behalf of Nair, walked the court through the case so far. She told the court that an FIR was registered on August 17, and two days later, a search was conducted at Nair’s home when he was in London. She told the court that Nair informed the agency that he would return to India as soon as possible, and arrived on August 28, when two of his mobile phones were seized.
John told the court that the agency had in total seized five mobile phones. While addressing allegations that Nair formatted his phone, John told the court, “I (Nair) told them (CBI) that I had given this (the phones) as a gift to my friends in London… obviously it may have been formatted for their use. I had given them (phones) to friends, even some of my own phones are formatted. That cannot be treated as a circumstance against me.”
“As far as the case is concerned, application handed over to me seems speculative than based on any hard facts. Fact is, I have not dealt with any money and did not even deal with policy. I dealt with the media… These are allegations based without foundation. They asked for 7 days’ police custody (PC). PC should not be granted in a routine way. I was in custody for over three weeks. Please reject the PC and send me to judicial custody,” John told the court.
A CBI officer told the court, “A lot of data was deleted on those phones.”
John, while addressing allegations that Nair was not cooperating with the investigation, told the court: “It is a red herring in criminal law, that unless I don’t say what they want (me) to say, then he is not cooperating.”
“I repeatedly came for questioning. We don’t care who is the co-accused, everybody is equal in law. Speaking for myself, I have joined on every date of hearing. I would have gone if they continued to call me. I used to come till 9 in the night,” John told the court.
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