New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has named the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Arvind Kejriwal — the party’s national convenor and Delhi’s chief minister — as accused in the alleged excise policy case.
Both were named in the prosecution complaint — the equivalent of a chargesheet under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002 — that ED filed before a special PMLA court in Delhi’s Rouse Avenue Court Friday.
This makes AAP, which has its roots in activist Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement of 2011, the first political party to be accused in a criminal case. Meanwhile, Kejriwal, who was first arrested by the ED on 21 March, is out on bail until 1 June.
“Kejriwal has been charged under Section 3 of the PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) and we have sought punishment under Section 4 of the PMLA while AAP has been named as accused under Section 70 of the PMLA,” an ED officer confirmed to ThePrint.
Section 3 of the PMLA, 2002, defines money laundering, Section 4 prescribes punishment for the offence, and Section 70 deals with ‘Offences by companies’.
This came after Additional Solicitor General S.V. Raju told the Supreme Court — which is hearing Kejriwal’s petition against his arrest — that the latest prosecution complaint would have AAP listed as an accused. He also claimed that the ED had “extracted” a conversation between Kejriwal and a hawala operator recently arrested in the case.
SC granted Kejriwal interim bail on 10 May. Unless he’s granted further relief, the Delhi CM must surrender to the law enforcement agency.
The ED’s money laundering investigation, launched in 2022, is based on a CBI case. The agency has long argued that AAP could be treated at par with a company under Section 70 of the PMLA.
The agency has filed seven prosecution complaints in the case so far, including the latest one. Besides Kejriwal, several high-profile political leaders have been arrested, including Delhi’s former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, AAP’s Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh, and K. Kavitha, the daughter of Bharat Rashtra Samithi chief and former Telangana chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao.
Kavitha was named as an accused in the last prosecution complaint that the agency filed. Meanwhile, Sanjay Singh, who was arrested last October, was granted bail in the case in April.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)
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