The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has issued a seventh summons to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in a money laundering probe related to irregularities in the Delhi Excise Policy 2021-22 case asking him to join the investigation on February 26, sources said as reported by news agency ANI.
AAP minister Atishi on Thursday said that the Enforcement Directorate has issued “one more illegal summon to Arvind Kejriwal”.
The AAP minister alleged that none of the ED summon follow “legal procedure”, and accused the BJP of “taking revenge” for the Chandigarh Mayoral polls results. The Supreme Court of India had overturned the Chandigarh Mayoral Poll results citing tampering by the returning officer Anil Masih.
The apex court ruled in favour of the AAP-Congress candidate Kuldeep Kumar.
“We have raised legal questions on every illegal summon of ED and till now, we haven't received a single response from ED... It is not a legal procedure. All this is just to threaten Arvind Kejriwal and AAP... The summons sent by ED today is just an attempt to take revenge for Chandigarh Mayoral polls” AAP minister Atishi said.
Earlier on 19 February, the Delhi CM skipped sixth ED summons. After he skipped the sixth summons, Aam Aadmi Party spokesperson Priyanka Kakkar had said that the party replied to all the summons and the investigative agency should have waited for the Court's verdict on the case. The party has repeatedly called the summons by the ED as illegal. Prior to this, Kejriwal skipped ED summonses for November 2 and December 21 in 2023 and January 3, January 18 and February 2 this year.
On Saturday, a Delhi court granted exemption to Kejriwal from personal appearance for the day in connection with a complaint filed by the ED against him over non-compliance with its summonses. Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Divya Malhotra granted relief to Kejriwal after the AAP leader appeared before the court via videoconferencing and urged for exemption from physical appearance for the day. Appearing for the CM, senior advocate Ramesh Gupta told the court that he will appear before the court in person on the next date of hearing. The court adjourned the matter to March 16.
In its complaint, ED alleged that Kejriwal intentionally did not want to obey the summonses and kept on giving "lame excuses". If a high-ranking public functionary like him disobeyed the law, it would "set a wrong example for the common man that is the "Aam Aadmi", the agency said.
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