Excise case: Delhi HC will hear Kejriwal’s plea against ED’s summons on Monday
The federal probe agency has alleged that the suspects had been in touch with Kejriwal for formulating the now scrapped excise policy that gave them unnecessary benefits in exchange for kickbacks to the AAP. (Photo: PTI)
The Delhi High Court will on Monday hear Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s petition challenging the summons sent to him by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with its investigation into an excise-related money laundering case.
Kejriwal, who was arrested by the agency on March 21 after the Supreme Court refused to grant him interim protection from coercive action, has also challenged the constitutional validity of certain provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act relating to arrest, interrogation and grant of bail.
The plea will be heard before the bench of Justice Suresh Kumar Kait and Justice Manoj Jain.
The AAP national president had approached the Supreme Court in the wake of the ninth ED summons asking him to appear before the court on March 21. The Supreme Court bench on March 20 asked the ED to file its reply regarding the maintainability of the petition.
The next day, the ED also sought response to Kejriwal’s plea seeking protection from arrest, saying it was not inclined to grant interim relief “at this stage”. Kejriwal was arrested by ED later that evening and is currently in judicial custody.
The federal probe agency has alleged that the suspects had been in touch with Kejriwal for formulating the now scrapped excise policy that gave them unnecessary benefits in exchange for kickbacks to the AAP.
In the plea, Kejriwal has raised several issues, including whether a political party is covered by the Anti-Money Laundering Act. It alleged that the arbitrary procedure under PMLA was used to create an uneven playing field for the general elections to “distort the electoral process in favor of the ruling party at the Centre”.
Stating that the petitioner is a “vocal critic” of the ruling party, a partner of the INDIA bloc, the plea alleged that the ED in control of the Union government is “weaponized”.
(Only the headline and image of this report may have been reworked by Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)
First print: April 21, 2024 | 4:51 PM IST