No relief yet! Kejriwal's ED custody now till Apr 1

NT Correspondent

New Delhi: Acourt here Thursday extended the Enforcement Directorate custody of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal till April 1 in the excise policy case.

The agency sought sevenday custody of the AAP chief, but the court said he has to be produced before it on April 1 at 11 am.

The ED had produced him before Rouse Avenue court Special Judge Kaveri Baweja as his current sixday custody was ending on Thursday.

The ED said in its fresh remand plea that during Kejriwal's custodial interrogation, his statements were recorded over five days but he was "giving evasive replies".

It said statements of three other persons relevant to the case have also been recorded during the remand period.

It said that during the ED custody, Kejriwal was confronted with C Arvind, the then personal secretary to deputy CM Manish Sisodia who was handed over the draft Group of Ministers (GoM) report for the 2021- 22 excise policy at the residence of the chief minister.

It said the statement of one of the AAP candidates in the 2022 Goa elections was also recorded during Kejriwal's ED custody.

It revealed that the candidate did not have any money and his election expenditure was "taken care of by the AAP Office Delhi only through their associates", The plea said that during the custody, data from the mobile phone of the CM's wife have been extracted and were being analysed.

"However, data from other four digital devices seized during the search at Kejriwal's premises on March 21 are yet to be extracted as the arrestee (Kejriwal) has sought time in providing password and login credentials after consulting with his lawyers," it said.

US speaks on Kejri arrest again; mentions Cong's frozen accounts too

Hours after India summoned US' acting deputy chief of mission Gloria Berbena and lodged a strong protest against Washington's remarks on the arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, US state department spokesperson Matthew Miller late Wednesday reiterated that Washington encourages fair, transparent, timely legal processes and “we don't think anyone should object to that".

“We continue to follow these actions closely, including the arrest of Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal,” Matthew Miller said while responding to a question during the state department briefing over India summoning the acting deputy chief of mission earlier in the day.

“We are also aware of the Congress party's allegations that tax authorities have frozen some of their bank accounts in a manner that will make it challenging to effectively campaign in the upcoming elections. And we encourage fair, transparent and timely legal processes for each of these issues," he said.

ED created smoke screen of AAP being corrupt: CM

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal alleged in a court here that ED's objective is to crush AAP.

Kejriwal also alleged that a smoke screen of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) being corrupt has been created before the nation by the ED.

"So far, the CBI has filed 31,000 pages in this case in the court and 294 witnesses have been examined. The ED has investigated 162 people and filed a 25,000-page report. By combining all these documents and reports, why have I been arrested? My name figures only in four statements," he said.