Excise case HC lists for Jan 22 Kejriwal's plea against ED summons

    New Delhi, Oct 23 (PTI) The Delhi High Court on Wednesday listed for hearing on January 22 former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal's petition challenging the summonses issued to him by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with its probe into an excise policy-linked money laundering case.
    While deferring the hearing in the matter, a bench of Justices Prathiba M Singh and Amit Sharma noted that some issues raised in the petition were pending before the Supreme Court.
    The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener had approached the high court in the wake of the ninth summons issued by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) asking him to appear before it on March 21.
    The high court bench had on March 20 asked the ED to file its reply with respect to the maintainability of the petition.
    The next day, it asked the ED to also respond to Kejriwal's plea seeking protection from arrest, saying "at this stage", it was not inclined to grant him any interim relief. Kejriwal was arrested by the ED later that evening.
    The AAP leader is currently on interim bail in the money laundering case, with the Supreme Court referring the questions on the aspect of "need and necessity of arrest" under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) to a larger bench for in-depth consideration.
    After being arrested by the CBI in the alleged corruption case on June 26, he was granted bail in the matter on September 13 by the top court.
    The ED has alleged that other accused in the case were in touch with Kejriwal for formulating the now-scrapped excise policy that resulted in undue benefits to them and kickbacks to AAP.
    In his petition, Kejriwal has also challenged the constitutional validity of certain provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) with respect to arrest, questioning and grant of bail.
    He has raised several issues, including whether a political party is covered under the anti-money laundering law. The petition alleged that "arbitrary procedure" under PMLA was being used to create a non-level playing field for the general elections to "skew the electoral process in the favour of the ruling party at the Centre".
    Stating the petitioner is a "vocal critic" of the ruling party and a partner of the opposition INDIA bloc, the plea claimed that the ED, being under the control of the Union government, has been "weaponised".

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)