The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed an FIR against jailed former Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and five others over alleged irregularities in the Delhi government’s Feedback Unit (FBU).

The investigating agency has made the AAP leader the accused number one in the snooping case. According to the FIR, they got a complaint in the matter from the L-G’s office. After the receipt of the complaint, a preliminary enquiry (PE) was registered.

Advertisement

The CBI had alleged that FBU was created and allegedly used for collecting intelligence related to “political activities of persons, political entities and political issues touching the political interest of AAP”.

Apart from Sisodia, the CBI has booked Sukesh Kumar Jain (IRS-1992), the then Secretary Vigilance; Rakesh Kumar Sinha (Retired DIG, CISF), working as Special Advisor to the CM; Pradeep Kumar Punj (Retired Jt. Deputy Director, IB); Satish Khetrapal (Retired Assistant Commandant, CISF); Gopal Mohan, Advisor Anti-corruption to the Chief Minister and others.

The FIR was lodged on March 14 under the Prevention of Corruption Act read with several sections of Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The AAP wanted to create a Feedback Unit (FBU) in 2015. Sukesh Jain, the Secretary (Vigilance) was directed to submit a detailed proposal for setting up FBU.

It has been alleged that Jain deliberately and willfully avoided referring the matter of creation of 20 posts in FBU to the Administrative Reforms Department.

The CBI’s preliminary inquiry established that a proposal was made by Jain, which was approved by Sisodia, that 20 posts in FBU be adjusted against 88 posts created in the Anti-Corruption Branch. These 88 posts were created in 2015. The proposal for the creation of these 88 posts had not been sent for approval to the competent authority.

The FBU didn’t frame any Recruitment Rules to appoint people on the posts. Yet, 17 posts in FBU were filled up. And Rs 20,59,474 were sought for operationalization of FBU from the Finance Department.

The CBI’s FIR said that bogus bills of lakhs of rupees were also raised by the accused persons.

After the CBI registered an FIR against Sisodia in ‘Feedback Unit (FBU)’ case, Kejriwal said it was sad for the country. He alleged that this was the PM’s plan to keep Sisodia in jail for a prolonged period of time. “PM’s plan is to slap several false cases against Manish and keep him in custody for a long period. Sad for the country!” he tweeted.

Earlier on March 10, a city court had sent Sisodia to seven-day Enforcement Directorate (ED)’s custody in connection with the now-scrapped excise policy case. After the CBI arrested him on February 26, the ED, on Thursday, had also arrested Sisodia in the same case.

The ED arrested the AAP leader after questioning him for eight hours inside the Tihar jail as part of its money laundering probe into the alleged irregularities in the 2021-22 excise policy of Delhi, officials said.