NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday issued a fresh summons to CM Arvind Kejriwal in the now-scrapped excise policy case and asked him to appear before it on February 26.
Kejriwal has so far skipped six summons — February 14, February 2, January 18, January 3, December 21 and November 2 in 2023 — by the federal agency in the case.
For repeatedly not complying with its summons, the ED approached the court against Kejriwal. The Rouse Avenue court then directed him to appear before it on February 17.
The probe agency told the court that the investigation has so far revealed that the excise policy 2021-22 was formulated “as a part of a criminal conspiracy by AAP leaders in order to generate and channelise illegal funds” for poll campaign.
Senior AAP leaders Manish Sisodia and Sanjay Singh apart from communications in-charge Vijay Nair have already been arrested in this case by the ED.
The AAP, however, again accused the BJP of using central agencies to silence their political rivals. Minister Saurabh Bhardwaj said that as soon as there is some political move by the AAP, the BJP-led Central government’s ED immediately sends summons to Kejriwal.
“Fresh evidence of this is that just a day ago, the conspiracy of the BJP-led Central government regarding the Chandigarh mayoral election was exposed before the entire nation, and immediately after that, the ED once again sent summons to CM Arvind Kejriwal,” Bhardwaj said.
He said that the Rouse Avenue court had adjourned the case till March 16, owing to the budget session of the Assembly, but the ED was in a hurry that they kept sending summonses to the CM. “If they did not want to follow the orders of the court, why did they initiate the legal process then,” he asked.