The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has issued its fourth summons to Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to appear before the agency and record his statement in connection with the Delhi excise policy case, according to ED officials.
Mr. Kejriwal, who skipped the first three summons, has been asked to appear before the investigating team on January 18. The CM is unlikely to appear before the agency as he had already announced a visit to Goa during the same time, according to AAP sources.
However, when asked whether the CM would appear before the agency, AAP’s Delhi convenor Gopal Rai did not give a conclusive answer, saying, “We will take advice from our legal advisers and act as per law.”
Preventing LS poll campaigning
Mr. Rai said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had sent the fourth summons through the ED to stop Mr. Kejriwal from preparing and campaigning for the upcoming Lok Sabha election.
“On Friday, the AAP announced Arvind Kejriwal ji’s three-day visit to Goa from January 18 for the preparations for the Lok Sabha elections and on Saturday, there is news in media that ED has sent summons to him to appear before it on January 18. This is no coincidence,” Mr. Rai told journalists.
He alleged that the BJP does not want any Opposition leader to campaign for the Lok Sabha election and therefore, has made the ED its weapon. “Our request is that ED should avoid becoming a frontal organisation of BJP and being politically misused by the BJP. And ED should stop sending these illegal notices,” Mr. Rai said.
‘Fabricated’
The case against the AAP supremo is based on a first information report (FIR) filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), alleging multiple irregularities in the formation and implementation of the Delhi excise policy (2021-22). The policy was withdrawn after allegations of corruption were made.
Following a summons by the CBI, Mr. Kejriwal appeared before the agency on April 16 and was questioned for nine hours. Speaking to the media after the questioning, the Chief Minister alleged that the entire case was fabricated and that the agencies had no proof of wrongdoing. The case was built to bring the AAP down, he said.
Two senior AAP leaders — Manish Sisodia and Sanjay Singh — are already under judicial custody in the case. Mr. Sisodia, then Delhi’s Deputy Chief Minister, was arrested by the CBI on February 26 following several rounds of questioning. On October 5, the ED arrested Mr. Singh, who is a Rajya Sabha member.
Repeated summons
Mr. Kejriwal was first summoned by the ED on November 2, but did not appear for questioning. Instead, he wrote to the ED, saying that the summons was “unsustainable in law” and “motivated.”
He was summoned for a second time to appear before the ED on December 21. Again, he did not appear, and wrote to the agency saying that the summons had been issued at the behest of his political rivals and was not in consonance with the law. He requested the agency to withdraw the summons.
The AAP chief was summoned for a third time to appear before the agency on January 3, but he skipped that too and wrote to the agency reiterating that the summons was “motivated” and seemed to be a “fishing exercise”.
Acting like ‘economic fugitive’
Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva said that Mr. Kejriwal was behaving like an “economic fugitive”, given the way he offered a new excuse to avoid investigation after every summons of the ED.
“The people of the country had seen people like Nirav Modi and Vijay Mallya behaving like this who later fled the country. The people of Delhi are surprised that Arvind Kejriwal allowed his minister Manish Sisodia and MP Sanjay Singh to join the investigation of the liquor scam but when the investigation his reached his doorstep, he is finding faults in the investigation process and trying to give it a political colour,” Mr. Sachdeva said.
