Jailed AAP leader Sanjay Singh not allowed to take oath as Rajya Sabha MP

Aam Aadmi Party leader Sanjay Singh will not take oath as Rajya Sabha MP on Monday. The Rajya Sabha chairman has refused to allow Singh to take oath, saying the matter is currently with the Privileges Committee, ANI reported.

Sanjay Singh was suspended from the Rajya Sabha on July 24 last year for not following the directions of the chair.

The 51-year-old jailed AAP leader was on Saturday allowed by Delhi’s Rouse Avenue court to take oath as an MP in policy custody. The court order had was issued two days after Singh had moved the court seeking interim bail for oath and also to attend the ongoing Budget session of Parliament from February 5 to 9.

Singh’s lawyer had submitted in court that the plea for interim bail is not pressed as the AAP leader had to go to Sultanpur for a hearing in another case filed against him on February 7.

As the ED did not oppose his modified plea, the court dismissed the politician’s interim bail application and allowed him to take oath on Monday.

Sanjay Singh has been in jail since October in connection with the ED’s money laundering probe into the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy. He had been granted permission on January 4 to file his nomination for Rajya Sabha membership and on January 10 to go to the returning officer to receive his membership certificate.

The central agency is probing the alleged money laundering in the matter. The case pertains to the Arvind Kejriwal government’s 2021-22 excise policy to revitalise the national capital’s flagging liquor business.

The Delhi excise policy case pertains to allegations that the Arvind Kejriwal-led Delhi government’s excise policy for 2021-22 allowed cartelisation and favoured certain dealers who had allegedly paid bribes for it, a charge that has been strongly refuted by the AAP.

Sanjay Singh’s party colleague and former Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia has been in jail since March last year in the same case.