A week after BRS chief KCR’s daughter Kavitha’s arrest, Enforcement DIrectorate officials arrested Delhi Chief Minister Aravind Kejriwal on Thursday evening, following dramatic events. Soon after the Delhi High Court refused to interfere in the case and provide him interim protection from arrest, ED officials rushed to his house in the name of a search warrant.
Even before his lawyers approached the Supreme Court seeking urgent relief, he was taken into custody. The arrest, the first of a sitting chief minister, came hours after the Delhi High Court refused to grant protection to the AAP national convenor from any coercive action by the agency.
The 55-year-old leader’s arrest, amid campaign for the Lok Sabha elections, drew angry reactions from his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). The party said Kejriwal “will continue as the chief minister of Delhi. If need be, he will run the government from jail.”
In a day of fast-paced developments, a 10-member ED team led by an additional director reached his official residence on Flagstaff Road in Civil Lines in the national capital soon after the high court order and carried out searches. He was arrested more than two hours after the ED team arrived at his residence, officials said.
Officials said the ED would produce the chief minister before a court here on Friday and seek his custody for interrogation in the case. Kejriwal had skipped nine summonses issued by the agency for questioning in the case, the latest being for Thursday, March 21. He has called these summonses “illegal”.
As the ED officials carried out their action inside, additional Delhi Police personnel and Rapid Action Force (RAF) and CRPF teams were deployed around the chief minister’s residence.
The additional deployment was made as the ED sought extra security measures in anticipation of protests by AAP supporters, sources said. A large number of AAP workers and leaders gathered near the chief minister’s residence and shouted slogans hailing Kejriwal and denouncing the ED action.
During the day, Kejriwal moved the Supreme Court against the high court’s order denying him any relief in the matter. Later, AAP leader Atishi said they have moved the Supreme Court for quash the arrest of Kejriwal and “asked for an urgent hearing…Tonight itself.”
AAP leaders Manish Sisodia and Sanjay Singh are in judicial custody in the case. Kejriwal’s name has been mentioned multiple times in the charge sheets filed by the ED. The agency has alleged that the accused were in touch with Kejriwal for formulating the excise policy that resulted in undue benefits to them in return for which they paid kickbacks to the AAP.
The ED had recently alleged in a statement that BRS leader Kavitha and some others “conspired” with top AAP leaders like Kejriwal and Sisodia to get favours in the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy by paying Rs 100 crore to the political party that rules Delhi.
