ED Moves Complaint Against Arvind Kejriwal For Skipping Summons

The Enforcement Directorate has filed a fresh complaint before a Delhi court on Wednesday seeking the prosecution of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for skipping its summonses in a money laundering investigation.

The agency in its complaint has stated that Kejriwal has “intentionally” and “deliberately” skipped three more summons jssued to him

The latest complaint is that the AAP national convenor did not respond to summons 4 to 8.

The court of ACMM Divya Malhotra has scheduled a hearing on Thursday regarding the case. The ED had previously approached a local court, requesting the prosecution of Kejriwal for failing to appear in response to the first three summonses issued to him in connection with the money laundering investigation related to the Delhi excise policy.

The court has listed this matter for hearing on March 16. Kejriwal, 55, had called all these eight ED summonses as “illegal” and informed the federal agency last time that he can be questioned via a video conferencing link after March 12.

The ED has filed the fresh complaint under section 174 IPC (non-attendance in obedience to an order from public servant) read with section 63(4) of the PMLA that speaks about “a person who intentionally disobeys any direction” apart from some other sections of the law.

Earlier, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has written to the Enforcement Directorate offering to appear before it via video conferencing after March 12 to answer questions related to the excise policy case. The AAP national convenor has so far skipped multiple summonses of the ED, calling them illegal and asking the agency to wait as the matter was in court.

This was the first time when Kejriwal said that he is ready to appear before the Enforcement Directorate even if via video-conferencing. In his earlier replies to the ED, the CM had said that he is willing to answer the agency’s questions in the form of a questionnaire.

The party, in power in Delhi and Punjab, has also alleged that its leader Kejriwal is being “targeted repeatedly” for refusing to quit the Opposition’s INDIA bloc.

(with PTI inputs)