The bureaucratic reshuffle came hours after Manish Sisodia, who also handles the Excise department, was raided by the CBI and named an accused in the First Information Report or FIR on liquor policy violations.
Mr Sisodia is number one on a list of 15 accused named in the CBI's FIR. The offences listed in the 11-page document are corruption, criminal conspiracy and falsification of accounts.
Besides Mr Sisodia's home in Delhi, 31 other locations were searched by the CBI across seven states. After the 14-hour raid, Manish Sisodia said his computer and phone have been seized by the probe agency.
Under the policy launched in November, liquor shop licenses were handed over to private players. It was rolled back by Mr Sisodia on July 30 after a probe was started initially by the Delhi Police's Economic Offences Wing.
The CBI states that Mr Sisodia introduced the new policy on who would be allowed to sell alcohol in Delhi without the permission of the Lieutenant Governor, who is the centre's representative in Delhi.
In its FIR, the CBI claimed that a liquor trader has paid Rs 1 crore to a company managed by an associate of Mr Sisodia. The probe agency alleges that liquor companies and middlemen were "actively involved in irregularities in the framing and implementation" of the excise policy.
Delhi's Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena had recommended the CBI probe last month after a report from the Chief Secretary alleging irregularities in the new liquor policy.
The Lieutenant Governor has accused AAP of bringing the Excise policy "with the sole aim" of benefiting private liquor barons for financial benefits to "individuals at the highest echelons of the government leading up to Manish Sisodia".
Mr Sisodia denied any wrongdoing and said the BJP is misusing the central agencies for political purposes. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convener has also firmly backed his deputy.
AAP says Mr Sisodia is being targeted because the Centre was furious over the front-page shout-out to him in the New York Times on Thursday.
