Court Summons Kejriwal On March 16 After ED Plea

New Delhi: A court on Thursday issued summons to chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on a fresh plea by Enforcement Directorate (ED), stating that he was “legally bound to comply with the summons” in a money laundering case but “allegedly he failed to do so”. Kejriwal has been asked to appear before the court on March 16. Divya Malhotra, additional chief metropolitan magistrate at Rouse Avenue Courts, summoned Kejriwal for the offence under Section 174 (non-attendance in obedience to an order from a public servant) of Indian Penal Code. “From the contents of the complaint and the material placed on record, prima facie offence under Section 174... is made out and there are sufficient grounds for proceeding under Section 204 of Code of Criminal Procedure against accused Arvind Kejriwal,” the court said. Kejriwal has skipped eight summonses issued by ED in the case related to the alleged Delhi Excise Policy scam. ED moved court on March 5 over non-compliance of three summonses on Jan 12 and 31 and Feb 14. The non-compliance of each of these summonses was termed as a separate offence and clubbed together as per Section 219 of CrPC, the court noted. ED has alleged AAP’s national convener is not complying with its summonses in the Delhi excise policy case. Earlier, too, the central agency had filed a petition on the same issue.In its latest plea, ED accused Kejriwal of sending “frivolous” replies by raising certain objections to the summonses. He also deliberately made one or the other excuse for non-appearance to evade the processes, ED alleged, adding that CM had been avoiding the investigation since Nov 11, 2023, the first date on which he was asked to appear for questioning. Kejriwal has termed the summonses issued to him either as “unsustainable in law” for their failure to disclose the capacity in which he was being called — as a witness or as a suspect — or to be suffering from “legal deficiencies”, the agency pointed out. Under Prevention of Money Laundering Act, ED submitted, an investigating officer is not required to disclose the capacity under which a person is being summoned, and at the stage of investigation, it would also be premature on the part of the agency to label the summoned person either as a witness or as an accused. “In any case, it is the investigating officer who has to carry out the interrogation and not the other way round, which the proposed accused seems to be doing by sending replies and raising queries,” the court noted.
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