The Delhi chief minister said he conveyed his willingness to the Enforcement Directorate to answer all its queries after the budget session.
Kejriwal announces street vendors survey to provide them better work conditions
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal once again skipped the summons issued by the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) on Monday, the eighth time, in connection with the excise policy case.
Addressing a press conference, Kejriwal said in a letter to the ED he expressed his willingness to answer the queries of the probe agency through video conferencing after the budget session.
Despite treating the summons as illegal, he said he has no qualms about answering all the queries of the agency through VC.
Advertisement
Reiterating that the summons is legally invalid, Kejriwal said he had written multiple times to the agency citing the reasons why he considers the summons illegal. But while not responding to any of his letters, the federal agency kept sending summons after summons to him. He alleged that the ED was functioning like a court.
As for his contention to appear before the agency through VC, he asserted that it was his right going by a Supreme Court’s recent order.
The chief minister has requested the ED to fix a date after March 12 for questioning through video conferencing, sources said on Monday.
Earlier while skipping the 7th summons, Kejriwal had said since the matter was sub-judiced in the court, the ED should have waited for the verdict instead of sending summons repeatedly.
Earlier, the court had given him a day’s relief from appearing in person before the court.
So far, Kejriwal has skipped a total of eight summonses by the federal agency since November 2023.
Earlier, he had alleged a conspiracy behind the ED summons to break his party’s alliance with the INDIA alliance.
Denying that he asked for a live questioning session, nevertheless, the CM said he had no objection to it.
Advertisement
