All allegations by Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia saying Jitendra Kumar, deputy legal advisor in the Central Bureau of Investigation, took his own life because he was pressurised to frame the Aam Aadmi Party leader, are false, top sources in the agency told CNN-News18 on Monday.
“CBI strongly refutes this mischievous and misleading statement by Shri Sisodia,” they added. “It is clarified that the gentleman officer, late Mr Jitendra Kumar, was in no way connected with the investigation of this case.”
The central agency raided Sisodia’s residence in August after it registered an FIR to investigate alleged irregularities in the formulation and execution of the Delhi Excise Policy brought out in November last year.
“A CBI officer was pressurised to frame me in a false excise case. He could not take the mental pressure and died by suicide two days ago. This is really unfortunate, I am deeply hurt,” Sisodia said during a press conference on Monday.
The CBI sources told CNN-News18 that Jitendra Kumar was deputy legal advisor incharge of prosecution, in which capacity he was supervising prosecutors who are conducting the trial of already charge-sheeted cases in Delhi.
Further, as per the Delhi Police, which is conducting an inquest into the matter, the officer has not held anyone responsible for his death in his suicide note, they added.
Sisodia had earlier said his family got a “clean chit” in the raids in connection with the liquor policy case and that the CBI officials found “nothing” at his home and in his bank locker.
However, the agency sources told CNN-News18 that the excise policy case is under investigation and no clean chit has been given to any of the accused.
“The mischievous and misleading statement of Shri Sisodia is an attempt to divert attention from the ongoing investigation in Delhi Excise Policy case, and also amounts to interference in the inquest proceedings into the death of the gentleman officer,” they said.
Sisodia, who also handles Delhi government’s excise portfolio, is among the 15 accused named in the FIR filed by the CBI in the liquor policy case.
The agency has alleged that the new policy was introduced without the permission of Delhi’s then lieutenant governor Anil Baijal and that several ineligible vendors were given licences by the AAP government in exchange for bribes.
The policy, introduced in November last year, was withdrawn eight months later amid allegations of corruption.
