A Delhi court on Thursday extended Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s financial probe agency Enforcement Directorate (ED) custody till April 1.
Seeking an extension of the Delhi Chief Minister’s custody by a week, the ED told Delhi’s Rouse Avenue court that Kejriwal had not disclosed any password so they did not get any access to his digital data.
“We need to confront him with some other people. Four more statements of AAP Goa candidates are being recorded. We will need to confront him with them. He is deliberately not cooperating with us,” the ED told the court.
In his defence, Arvind Kejriwal said, “This case has been going on for two years. No court has convicted me, no case has been filed against me, CBI has filed 30,000 pages in this case and the ED filed 162 pages.”
“The agency said at my residence, some documents regarding the case were exchanged. Hundreds of MLAs and dignitaries come, how do I know what they give to each other? Are four statements enough to arrest a sitting CM?” he asked.
“It’s being alleged that there was laundering of Rs 100 crore in the liquor scam, but Justice Sanjiv Khanna said that the money trail is not yet traced,” he added.
“The motive of the ED is to crush the Aam Aadmi Party,” he claimed.
In its response, the ED said, “The money was used in AAP’s Goa campaign and there are many statements. We are only concerned about the present case. There is no different law for a CM. He is an ordinary man for us.”
The agency added, “We haven’t arrested him because he’s the CM. We have arrested him based on the material in our possession.”
Delhi CM Kejriwal’s lawyer Ramesh Gupta, after the hearing in Rouse Avenue Court, told ANI that “Kejriwal conceded that he is ready to cooperate and he has no objection to being in custody. We told the court that we oppose the grounds on which remand is being sought. The court will grant remand custody now that he has conceded before the court.”
The AAP national convener was arrested by the ED in connection with the now-scrapped Delhi liquor policy scam on March 21 and subsequently remanded to the federal agency’s custody till March 28 by a local court.
Earlier in the day, the Delhi High Court dismissed a PIL seeking the removal of AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal from the post of chief minister following his arrest in the excise policy-linked money laundering case. A bench headed by Acting Chief Justice Manmohan refused to comment on the merits of the issue, saying the same fell outside the scope of judicial interference.
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