In an unprecedented move, the Enforcement Directorate made Aam Aadmi Partya co-accused in the Delhi Excise Policy scam case, filing a charge sheet against a political party for the first time in history. The ED today filed a prosecution complaint, equivalent of police charge sheet, against Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal and his party AAP in the case.
This is the eight chargesheet filed in the case. This comes a day after ED told the Supreme Court on Thursday that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) will be made a co-accused in the money laundering case linked to the Delhi excise policy case. Appearing before a bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta, Additional Solicitor General SV Raju, representing the ED, said a complaint against AAP is in the pipeline and there is direct evidence of its national convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal demanding Rs 100 crore as kickbacks in the case.
Earlier on 10 May, ED had filed the 7th charge sheet in the case against BRS leader K Kavitha and four others.
AAP has been made an accused because the party allegedly directly benefited from the scam. As per allegations, AAP received kickbacks from the South Group in exchange of providing they favours in Delhi’s liquor policy, and some of the money was sent to Goa unit of AAP to be used during assembly elections in the state.
In the money laundering case registered by ED, it is alleged that AAP leaders including Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia and others had hatched a criminal conspiracy to create loopholes in the Delhi Excise Policy of 2021-22 in order to favour some traders, particularly those from the so-called South Group. It is alleged that the South Group made payments to AAP through BRS leader K Kavitha, and payments were made through hawala. Some of the bribe payments were sent to Goa where the AAP used the funds for election campaigning.
Arvind Kejriwal was arrested by the ED on March 21 after he ignored as many as 9 summons for questioning, and was lodged in Tihar jail. The Supreme Court granted him interim bail on 10th May so that he can campaign for the party during the ongoing Lok Sabha polls. He has been asked to return to jail by 2 May.
