Delhi excise policy case: ED may issue 7th summons to Kejriwal

NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) may issue seventh summons to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in connection with the excise policy case, said an agency source.

This comes after Kejriwal on Monday again skipped the Enforcement Directorate summons while party sources said that the validity of appearing before the ED is under the scrutiny of the court.

The ED had lodged a complaint in local court pursuant to Section 174 of the IPC against Kejriwal, accusing him of deliberately disregarding the initial three summons.

“The court has acknowledged this complaint, indicating a prima facie acceptance of Kejriwal's alleged offence, subjecting him to prosecution,” said the ED sources.

“The court's focus lies not on the summons' validity but on Kejriwal's purported intentional disobedience of these three summonses,” the ED sources added.

On February 7, the Rouse Avenue court had issued summons to Kejriwal to appear on February 17 on ED's complaint for not complying with summons sent to him in connection with its probe into the money laundering case related to the now-scrapped excise policy matter.

The ED on January 31 had issued summons to Kejriwal, and was told to appear before it on February 2. That was the fifth summons issued to the AAP Convenor. Before that ED had issued summons on January 18, January 3, December 22, 2023 and November 2, 2023.

The financial probe agency's complaint alleged that Kejriwal intentionally did not want to obey the summons and kept on giving “lame excuses”.

"If a high-ranking public functionary like him disobeyed the law, it would set a wrong example for the common man, i.e., the Aam Aadmi,” the agency had said.