The Enforcement Directorate issued its fourth summon to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in connection with the excise liquor policy case, on Saturday, 13 January, and asked him to appear before the probe agency for questioning on 18 January.
The Aam Aadmi Party leader had skipped the ED’s first three summons on 2 November, 21 December, and 3 January as well. He had said that he was being asked to appear with the aim only being to arrest him.
What’s the case? The CBI and ED have alleged that money laundering and corrupt practices took place during the framing of the Delhi excise liquor policy.
Allegedly, liquor companies were made part of framing the policy to generate higher profits for them.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party alleged that AAP used the money from this scam to fund its election campaigns in Gujarat and Goa in 2022.
Other AAP leaders like Manish Sisodia and Sanjay Singh are behind bars in the case. In April 2023, Kejriwal had been questioned by the Central Bureau of Investigation in this matter too.
The ED has claimed that they want to question Kejriwal about the bribery allegations and about how the policy was formulated.
In its chargesheet against AAP leaders filed in December last year, the ED claimed that the party got Rs 45 crore worth of compensation and the leaders were given bribes worth Rs 100 crore in the excise policy case. AAP, on its part, has been alleging that the central government is misusing the ED to target its political opponents.
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