New Delhi: Security heightened outside the residence of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday morning after AAP ministers Atishi and Saurabh Bhardwaj claimed, citing unnamed inputs, that the Enforcement Directorate is likely to arrest the AAP convener on 4 January.
Kejriwal skipped the agency’s summons in connection with the Delhi Excise Policy case on Wednesday.
Taking to X, AAP leader and Delhi’s Law and PWD Minister, Atishi, said, “News coming in that ED is going to raid Arvind Kejriwal’s residence tomorrow morning. Arrest likely.”
Kejriwal, in his reply to the ED, expressed his readiness to cooperate with the investigation but declined to appear on the summoned date, calling the notice “illegal.”
Kejriwal further questioned agency for not responding to his earlier replies when the summons was sent to him and he had raised certain queries on the nature of the agency’s investigation.
In his written reply to the ED the Delhi CM said “As a premier investigating agency the non-disclosure and non-response approach adopted by you cannot sustain the test of law, equity or justice. Your obstinacy tantamount to assuming the role of judge, jury and executioner at the same time which is not acceptable in our country governed by the rule of law.”
“In these circumstances i urge you to respond to my earlier response and clarify the position so as to enable me to understand the real intent, ambit, nature, sweep and scope of the purported inquiry/investigation for which I am being called” he added in his response.
The Delhi CM was first called by the central agency to appear on November 2, but he did not depose, alleging that the notice was “vague, motivated, and unsustainable in law.”
He further alleged that the said summons appeared to be politically motivated and issued for extraneous considerations. Meanwhile, the AAP also questioned the timing of the notice just before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.