Aam Aadmi Party senior leader Shri Jasmine Shah today asked the Enforcement Directorate (ED) that who ordered it to violate the Supreme Court order, mandating the audio of the video recording of the interrogation of the accused and the statements of the witnesses be preserved.
He said on December 2, 2020, the Supreme Court ordered in the case of Paramveer Singh Saini vs Baljit Singh & others that any investigative agency in the country must store the audio and video recording of its interrogation, it must be kept safe, to ensure that the statements are not taken by intimidation.
Addressing media persons here today, Shri Jasmine Shah said the so-called liquor scam of Delhi will be the first such case in the history of the country in which investigation has been going on continuously for the last two years and thousands of raids have been conducted across the country without any concrete evidence or recovery of money. “Thousands of raids have taken place from East to West, from North to South, but not even a single penny has been recovered. ED has not found any concrete evidence yet. Still, you are seeing how big leaders of Aam Aadmi Party are continuously being sent to jail. There is no evidence. The only basis of this ED investigation which has been going on for the last two years is that how has this whole thing stood based on the statements of some people who were first made accused and then became government witnesses, that is, approvers,” he said.
He said without any solid evidence or recovery of money, a bundle of lies has been created based on the statements of government witnesses to build up a case. “Now we have to understand how much truth is there behind these statements. You all know that last year many such witnesses, many such accused went to the court and said that the ED has intimidated them and made them sign fake statements. A witness said that he was slapped below the ear with such force that his eardrums burst, and he could no longer hear. We are not claiming it, a witness has gone to the court and given a signed statement. The second witness said that pressure was put on him that if he did not take the names of big leaders of Aam Aadmi Party, then the ED would see how his daughter goes to college. This witness too gave it in a signed statement before the court. Another witness said that not only was he arrested, his wife was arrested too, she was also intimidated and because of that he was forced to sign a fake statement. These witnesses have presented all these facts before the court through signed statements. So, from this you can guess how the investigation is going on. Two years have passed, and no concrete evidence is available, so ED builds up a case on statements,” said the AAP leader.
Referring to the Supreme Court order in the case of Paramveer Singh Saini vs Baljit Singh and others that has great relevance in the ongoing ED investigation in the so-called Delhi liquor scam, Senior AAP leader Shri Jasmine Shah said, “Para 17 of the SC order clearly says that any investigative agency in the country has to store the audio and video recording of its interrogation and it has to be kept safe. Why to keep it because there are so many such cases where the investigative agencies are taking statements from witnesses by intimidation. It was not just talked about one agency, the names of all the investigative agencies of the country were written in it, but in para number 19, the name of ED was clearly written that by this order,” he said, adding that even before the so-called Delhi liquor scam, many times physical abuse was done at the time of interrogation, violation of human rights had taken place.
According to SC, under Article 21 of the Constitution of India that guarantees the Fundamental Right to Life and Liberty, every accused or witness who is called for interrogation has the right to speak frankly and no statement should be taken under threat. This is the order of 2nd December 2020. “You all know that when the order of the Supreme Court comes, it immediately comes into force in the country,” he said.
Shri Jasmine Shah said in early 2022, an investigation into Delhi’s so-called liquor scam began and in July 19, 2023, a similar direction was given by Shri MK Nagpal, who is the special court judge hearing the Delhi liquor scam, to the ED as one of the accused asked for it. “One of the accused asked for the CCTV recording of the interrogation he had undergone. Since the Supreme Court has given this right to the accused for every interrogation, so this clear order is passed by the special judge of the Rouse Avenue Court in this matter to provide the CCTV footage,” he said.
The AAP leader said on 3rd February 2024, one of the accused stated in the court that the face-to-face confrontation of the government approver with him was entirely different from the written statement submitted by the ED in the court. “The accused said that the confrontation did not match with the written statement of the ED and that is why he asked for the CCTV footage. However, the CCTV footage that ED submitted to the accused and the court, only the video footage was there, the audio footage is completely missing, erased. When this matter came before the court on 3rd February, the judge reprimanded the ED lawyers and said that ED should present its entire case before the court on 7th February,” he said.
Shri Jasmine Shah further said the Aam Aadmi Party has come to know through some reliable sources that this is not the only incident where ED has interrogated the witnesses and there has been a confrontation between the witnesses and the accused but the ED has not kept the audio recording of it.
He said in a case in which there are more than 500 witnesses, only ED can tell that in how many cases they have kept audio and video recordings of the statements and in how many cases they have been deleted. “But this incident is before the court. It is not our claim, and we are not saying this. It is being said by the accused in the court that there is a hell of difference between their statements during interrogation and the recordings. It is shocking and it is shocking because from the beginning we have been saying that the alleged liquor scam of Delhi is a completely fake case. Neither the money has been recovered nor any concrete evidence has been found. Now what is coming out is that the written statements given by the government witnesses, the accused have given, there is no basis for it,” said the AAP leader.
Shri Jasmine Shah said the statements cannot be substantiated with any audio recording, which means it is completely a political vendetta. “It was and is continuing to have only and only objective to destroy the Aam Aadmi Party by any means, put Arvind Kejriwal in jail, put all the leaders of Aam Aadmi Party in jail,” he said.
Shri Jasmine Shah said he has two questions for the ED;
One, the Aam Aadmi Party wants to know who gave the ED the right to violate the order of the Supreme Court dated 2nd December 2020 that is a binding on all investigative agencies? Under whose pressure did the ED take this decision?
Two, on whose order and under whose pressure, the ED made so many audio recordings disappear?
