Delhi LG office cites inquiry report to blame Manish Sisodia for excise policy 'wrongdoings'

Delhi Chief Secretary, Naresh Kumar, has submitted his vigilance inquiry report to Delhi's Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena on the alleged corruption in the ongoing excise policy.

Delhi Chief Secretary, Naresh Kumar, has submitted his vigilance inquiry report to Delhi's Lieutenant Governor (LG) V K Saxena on the alleged corruption in the ongoing excise policy.

Delhi LG secretariat claimed that said report has serious observations about the irregularities and Saxena's office claimed that it was Delhi's Deputy CM Manish Sisodia who actually gave windfall gains to the licensees and caused revenue loss to the government.

On Saturday, Manish Sisodia claimed in a press conference that it was the then LG who took decisions, and hence the government suffered a massive loss of revenue. In view of this, he asked CBI to look into the role of former LG Anil Baijal to find out the truth about the implementation of the excise policy. Now Delhi LG house comes out with the pointwise findings by the Chief secretary underlining the role of the excise minister and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia.

According to the details provided by the Delhi LG office, the report points fingers at Sisodia's role on at least three points.

1. Levy of Import Pass Fees on Beer and Profit Margin per unit for the manufacturer in case of Foreign Liquor: “Officers of the Excise department neither took the approval of the Council of Ministers nor the opinion of the LG before issuing the order dated November 8, 2021, for revising the formula of calculation of rates of foreign liquor and removal of levying of import pass fee @Rs 50 per case on beer. It is observed that by undertaking such a reduction in the wholesale price, the input cost of beer and foreign liquor to the retail licensees (L7Z) was reduced.”

Finance department vide note dated October 28, 2021, proposed that: “Excise department may place the comparative statement regarding the impact on excise revenue of the government, impact on MRP, profit margin of wholesaler and profit margin of retailer due to the proposed changes before the Group of Ministers (GoM) for taking the appropriate decision”

However, Delhi's Deputy CM on November 1, 2021, over-ruled the proposal of the Finance Department and recorded that, “The Proposal of Excise department is reasonable and accordingly approved. The ratification can be done later by the GoM and the Cabinet.” “Had such financial implications of proposed changes for reduced cost of beer and foreign liquor been available with the bidders (thus reducing their input cost), they would have quoted higher license fee payable to the Government. Even if there was no scope for levying additional license fees, then the Department could have kept this revenue after detecting such calculation error, instead of passing it to the retail L/Z licensees 'post tender' as keeping such revenue by the Government would have established fairness to all participants of the bidding process for retail L/Z licenses. Instead, the Department decided to extend this undue favor to the retail L7Z licensees.”