• Source:JND
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Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was summoned by the Enforcement Directorate for the sixth time on Wednesday. The summons has been issued after non-compliance with its summons in a money-laundering case linked to the Aam Admi Party (AAP) government's Delhi excise policy. 

Issuing the summon, the probe agency has asked Kejriwal to appear on February 19 in the liquor policy case. The Delhi CM has skipped all the five summons by the ED. While skipping the fifth summons issued by the ED, Kejriwal termed it "illegal", saying he was ready to cooperate but the agency intended to arrest him and stop him from election campaigning.

"All five notices sent to me (by the ED) are illegal and invalid in the eyes of the law. Whenever such general, non-specific notices were sent by the ED in the past, they were quashed and declared invalid by courts. These notices are being sent as part of a political conspiracy," Kejriwal said after skipping the fifth notice.

A day after Kejriwal skipped the fifth summons issued by the Enforcement Directorate, the agency on February 3 approached a Delhi Court against him for "non-compliance with the summons".

The case against the Aam Aadmi Party supremo is based on a First Information Report (FIR) alleging multiple irregularities in the formation and implementation of the Delhi excise policy (2021-22) by the Central Bureau of Investigation. The policy was withdrawn after allegations of corruption.

In its sixth charge sheet filed in the case on December 2, 2023, naming AAP leader Sanjay Singh and his aide Sarvesh Mishra, the ED has claimed that the AAP used kickbacks worth Rs 45 crore generated via the policy as part of its assembly elections campaign in Goa in 2022.

On Kejriwal's role, one of the six charge sheets filed in January 2023 states that Kejriwal told businessman Sameer Mahendru that former AAP communications in-charge Vijay Nair "is his boy" and that he should trust him.

 

(With inputs from ANI)