A day after Kejriwal disregarded the fifth summons issued to him, ED filed a fresh complaint under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) at a local court, with additional solicitor general SV Raju appearing before it to seek direction to the CM to appear for questioning before ED.
Both Raju and ED were unavailable for comments. There was no reaction either from the Delhi CM on the fresh developments.
In its plea before the additional chief metropolitan magistrate Divya Malhotra, ED flagged to the court “non-attendance in compliance of Section 50 of PMLA received (by the CM) by way of assignment” which can be checked. After a brief hearing on the complaint filed by ED, the judge posted the matter for hearing on February 7.
“Bhag Kejriwal Bhag”: BJP’s Shehzad Poonawalla attacks Delhi CM for skipping ED summons
Kejriwal has already skipped five summonses issued to him, dubbing them as illegal on grounds that he was not an accused in the case. The plea in the court against the Delhi CM marked a switch of tack on part of ED which last week arrested Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren after the latter refused to respond to corruption charges.
ED officials maintain that Kejriwal’s disregard of summonses can be seen as him being evasive and not cooperating with the investigation: reason enough for the agency to arrest him and approach the court for custodial interrogation.
The Delhi CM had earlier said, as reported by TOI, summonses are only meant to arrest him and prevent him from campaigning in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. He had dubbed the notices illegal, saying such missives have no legal standing and have been rejected by courts in the past.
“I have repeatedly written to ED saying the notices are illegal but they have not replied to me,” he had told reporters and said nothing has been found in the two-year-long probe by the agency while “false statements are being extracted out of people by beating them”.
ED sources had explained the repeated summonses by pointing to its assurance given to the Supreme Court to wind up investigations within six months, that was in October last year. The assurances came during the bail hearing of Kejriwal’s senior colleague and former deputy CM of Delhi Manish Sisodia who is in jail in the same case for the past one year.
Watch Delhi crime branch at Arvind Kejriwal’s residence to serve notice again, CM says ‘high-end drama’