Delhi chief minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convener Arvind Kejriwal on Monday skipped the seventh summons from the Enforcement Directorate (ED), seeking to question him in the money laundering case linked to alleged irregularities in the Delhi excise policy 2021-22. According to AAP, the probe agency should wait for a court order instead of issuing summons repeatedly to Kejriwal.
ED issued a summon to Kejriwal asking him to appear before it on February 26, after he continued to skip interrogation since November 2 last year when he was first asked to depose before the probe agency but did not, alleging the notice was “vague, motivated and unsustainable in law.”
The second summon was issued on December 18, the third one on January 3, the fourth on January 18, the fifth summon was issued on February 2, and the sixth one on February 19. However, the Delhi CM skipped all the summons, terming them as “illegal” and wrote to the ED seeking their withdrawal.
Meanwhile, the probe agency also filed a complaint against Kejriwal for “disobeying” its summons in this case.
Delhi minister Atishi alleged last week that AAP leaders have been receiving messages, threatening them to leave the Opposition’s INDIA bloc, after reports claimed that the seat-sharing deal between the AAP and the Congress could be announced anytime soon. On February, 24, the AAP and the Congress announced a seat sharing formula in Delhi, and other states, for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls as part of INDIA bloc.
Earlier this month, the agency took the matter to the court after Arvind Kejriwal had skipped several summonses related to the investigation. The court after summoning Kejriwal had, in an earlier hearing, allowed him to appear virtually and later fixed March 16 as the next day of hearing.
In its complaint before the court, the ED alleged that Kejriwal intentionally did not want to obey the summons and instead 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, the agency said.
The Delhi CM had claimed that the summons were illegal and the agency’s only aim was to arrest him.
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