Arvind Kejriwal not to appear before ED in Delhi, AAP calls summon ‘illegal’

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will not appear before the Enforcement Directorate for questioning in a money laundering case linked to the Delhi excise policy. Meanwhile, AAP has called the probe agency’s summons ‘illegal’. The ED on Wednesday issued a fresh and the fifth summons to Kejriwal after he skipped four earlier summonses issued by the federal agency over the last four months.

The AAP has maintained that its legal team is studying the summons issued to Kejriwal in connection with the excise policy linked money laundering case. Kejriwal is scheduled to participate in a protest along with his Punjab counterpart Bhagwant Mann outside the BJP headquarters on Friday against the alleged cheating in Chandigarh mayoral polls.

On Tuesday, in a setback to the Congress and the AAP — both INDIA bloc members — the BJP swept the Chandigarh mayoral polls. The AAP-Congress combine alleged that the presiding officer had tampered with the ballot papers.

It is alleged that the Delhi government’s excise policy for 2021-22 to grant licences to liquor traders allowed cartelisation and favoured certain dealers who had allegedly paid bribes for it, a charge repeatedly refuted by the AAP. The policy was subsequently scrapped and Delhi Lt Governor VK Saxena recommended a Central Bureau of Investigation probe, following which the ED registered a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).