Manish Sisodia arrest live updates: Supreme Court declines to interfere in the case against Manish Sisodia

The Supreme Court is set to hear Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodia's plea challenging his arrest by the CBI in the Liquor Policy case. The matter will be heard by a bench led by CJI DY Chandrachud.

The Delhi liquor sales policy introduced in 2021, which has now been withdrawn, led to Sisodia's arrest.

Under the policy, the government no longer had anything to do with selling liquor and allowed only private shops to do so. The goal was to stop black marketing, increase revenue and improve the consumer experience, reports NDTV.

Citing a report from Delhi's top bureaucrat which accused Mr Sisodia of bending rules and providing undue benefits to liquor vend licensees, Delhi LG VK Saxena asked for a CBI probe, says the report. Shortly after, Sisodia said the policy was going to be cancelled.

According to The Indian Express, the CBI named 15 individuals in its FIR filed with Sisodia topping the list. Quoting allegations in a memorandum issued by the office of the L-G, the FIR said that Sisodia, then Delhi Excise Commissioner Arava Gopi Krishna, and two other senior excise department officials were “instrumental in recommending and taking decisions pertaining to excise policy for the year 2021-22 without the approval of competent authority with an intention to extend undue favours to the licensee post tender.”

The FIR says that some of the L-1 licence holders were issuing credit notes to retail vendors with the intention to divert the funds as an undue pecuniary advantage to public servants, showing false entries in their books of accounts to keep their record straight.

Sisodia was arrested under sections 120 B (criminal conspiracy), 477 A (intent to defraud) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, reports India Today.