In November 2021, a government official from Delhi stated that, "for the first time ever all state-owned liquor shops were going to be shut and is transferred completely to private business players".
The bill invited private enterprises to enter the field of liquor business, with an aim to boost up the excise department revenue by over a large percentage.
"[10][11] In July 2022, Chief Secretary of Delhi, Naresh Kumar, reports procedural violations in the formation of the liquor policy to Saxena, who recommended a CBI probe.
These alleged violations were the ignoring of the recommendations of the expert committee and the bypassing of the Lieutenant Governor when implementing the policy.
The ED alleged that Jain and Sisodia overruled the decisions of the expert committee and bypassed the Lieutenant Governor in tweaking the policy to include this profit margin, which they alleged was never discussed during the meetings of the Group of Ministers but was instead agreed on as a "collective decision" of the Delhi cabinet.
It was further alleged that Vijay Nair, the AAP's communication in charge who was closely interacting with Sisodia about the liquor policy, was paid 100 crore in advance kickback by a "South Group", consisting of Hyderabad-based private entities.
Some of the members of this alleged "South group" included former Telangana Chief Minister's K. Chandrashekhar Rao's daughter K. Kavitha and then-Ongole Lok Sabha MP Magunta Sreenivasulu Reddy from ruling YSRCP party in Andhra Pradesh, along with many Hyderabad-based businessmen.
The BJP IT-cell head Amit Malviya released the video, and voiced large corruption and bribery by officials, and pitched in concerns that the state suffered with middlemen and mafias in the government.
[12] 2021 2022 2023 Manish Sisodia who also heads the excise department accused the governor V K Saxena who had approved the bill earlier without any issues of opening outlets even in unauthorized areas, of "changing stand as per requirements".
Further AAP also accused that L-G Saxena exchanged demonetized currency notes worth of ₹1,400 crore while he was chairman of a government Khadi body in 2016.
[18][19] On 20 August 2022, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) conducted raids on the Deputy CM Sisodia's residences to determine the series of accusations charged on the government relating to the liquor scam.
As per the officials these raids were carried out on the basis of FIR filed by the CBI, in which Manish Sisodia was named as accused.