After the Enforcement Directorate (ED) filed a fresh complaint seeking prosecution of Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, a Delhi court issued a fresh summons to the AAP leader. The Delhi Rouse Avenue Court asked him to appear before it in person on March 16.
ED had filed a complaint after Kejriwal skipped its summons several times. The summonses were issued in connection with a money laundering case related to the Delhi excise policy, which was scrapped a while ago.
The latest complaint pertains to Kejriwal not honouring summonses no. 4 to 8 sent by the ED under Section 50 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The court of additional chief metropolitan magistrate (ACMM) Divya Malhotra had listed the matter for hearing on Thursday.
In a post on X, Arvind Kejriwal hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, alleging that opposition leaders were being “forced” to join the BJP by “harassing” them through the ED. The AAP leader said the notices being sent to him would stop if he joined the BJP.
Kejriwal has called all the ED summonses “illegal”. However, he informed the agency recently that he would answer its queries via videoconferencing after March 12.
“We have not done anything wrong nor are we trying to hide,” he had said at a press conference on March 4, the day he was asked to join the probe as per the ED’s eighth summons.
ED files fresh complaint
The ED has filed the fresh complaint under Section 174 (non-attendance in obedience to an order from public servant) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) read with Section 63(4) of the PMLA that speaks about “a person who intentionally disobeys any direction” along with sections 190(1)(a) (receiving a complaint of facts which constitute such offence) and 200 (evidence of witnesses on oath) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) for non-attendance in compliance of Section 50 (powers of authorities regarding summons, production of documents and to give evidence, etc.) of the PMLA.
In a similar situation, the jailed former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren has also been summoned by a Ranchi court on April 3 after he failed to respond to ED notices.
Kejriwal’s name has come up many times in charge sheets filed by the ED in the excise policy case. The reason given is that the accused were in touch with Kejriwal regarding the preparation of the excise policy for 2021-22.
AAP leaders Manish Sisodia and Sanjay Singh, party communications in-charge Vijay Nair and some liquor businessmen have been arrested in this case so far.
The ED charge is that Delhi government’s excise policy in which it granted licences to liquor traders allowed cartelisation and favoured certain dealers who had allegedly given bribes. This accusation has been repeatedly denied by the AAP.
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