Manish Sisodia challenges his arrest in Supreme Court

New Delhi: Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia Tuesday moved to Supreme Court challenging his arrest by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the Excise policy scam case.

Sisodia was on Monday sent to five-day custody of the CBI by a special court here, a day after his arrest.

Sisodia's counsels submitted before the Rouse Avenue court that the case is an assault on an individual as well as the institution and asked whether the arrest was done for an "ulterior motive".

Claiming there was no evidence against Sisodia and opposing the CBI's plea for his remand, they said it was the Delhi lieutenant governor who had approved the changes in the excise policy and that the central probe agency was going after the elected government.

Special judge M K Nagpal allowed the CBI's plea for the custodial interrogation of Sisodia after he reserved the order for some time after hearing arguments by both the sides during the hearing that lasted for more than an hour.

The CBI on Sunday evening arrested Sisodia after nearly eight hours of questioning on various aspects of the now scrapped excise policy for 2021-22, which the probe agency says suffered from irregularities both in its formulation and implementation, allegedly intended to benefit people with links to the AAP.