Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convenor Arvind Kejriwal has decided not to appear before the Enforcement Directorate on Monday. This is the seventh summons issued by the agency asking Kejriwal to appear before it for questioning in the Delhi excise policy-linked money laundering case on February 26.
The statement issued by the AAP said that the matter is in court and the next hearing is on March 16. "Instead of sending summons daily, the ED should wait for the court's decision. We will not leave the INDIA alliance. Modi government should not create pressure like this," the AAP said in a statement.
The AAP had earlier alleged that the seventh summons came as soon as the party finalised seat-sharing talks with the Congress. "We have learnt from reliable sources that the CBI is planning to arrest Kejriwal. The CBI will also serve a notice to Kejriwal either this afternoon or by the evening," Delhi cabinet minister and senior AAP leader Saurabh Bharadwaj told reporters last week.
"We are getting messages that if the AAP-Congress alliance is formed, Arvind Kejriwal will be arrested. The BJP is scared of the AAP-Congress alliance. You can arrest Kejriwal if you want, but the alliance will be forged," he said.
He alleged that the Centre was planning to arrest Kejriwal in the next two to three days.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court will hear on Monday a plea by Kejriwal challenging a Delhi High Court order which upheld a summons issued to him as an accused in a criminal defamation case for retweeting an allegedly defamatory video circulated by YouTuber Dhruv Rathee in May 2018.
A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta is likely to hear the matter.
In its judgement dated February 5, 2024, the high court said that reposting alleged libellous content will attract defamation law. The high court had said a sense of responsibility has to be attached while retweeting content about which one does not have knowledge and added that retweeting of defamatory content must invite penal, civil as well as tort action if the person retweeting it does not attach a disclaimer.