NEW DELHI, Jan 13: Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has received a fourth summons from the Enforcement Directorate to appear for questioning in connection with a money laundering case involving the Delhi excise policy, according to official sources on Saturday. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener, Kejriwal, has been summoned to resign before the agency on January 18 at its headquarters here, according to a statement from the organisation. Kejriwal is scheduled to visit Goa for three days from January 18 to January 20 to assess his party’s readiness for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections, according per AAP sources. The 55-year-old leader had stated that the agency’s “non-disclosure and non-response approach” could not withstand the test of law, equity, or justice and that its “obstinacy” amounted to taking on the roles of judge, jury, and executioner. On January 3, the leader had declined to depose before the ED for the third time. Previously, the chief minister was asked to step down on November 2, 2023, and December 21, 2023.Kejriwal’s argument that the summons he was given was “not in consonance with the law” and should be withdrawn has once again been rejected by the ED with the issuance of the new notice. The sources state that the agency feels Kejriwal’s summonses were “well within the PMLA procedures and law.” In charge sheets the ED submitted in the case, Kejriwal’s name has appeared several times. The agency has alleged that the accused were in communication with him over the preparation of the now-scrapped Delhi Excise Policy 2021-22.The AAP might be named as a “beneficiary” of the purported kickbacks obtained under the excise policy in the ED’s anticipated new supplemental charge sheet. The Delhi government’s excise policy for 2021–22, which granted licences to liquor dealers, is accused of enabling cartelization and favouring some dealers who had reportedly paid bribes for it—a allegation that the AAP has always denied. After the policy was abandoned, Delhi Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena suggested a CBI investigation, and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) filed a complaint in accordance with the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
