Delhi Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Atishi has slammed the Enforcement Directorate (ED) over what she called was "fake summons" issued to her party colleague and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

Reacting to the summons in the second case, Atishi said, "Nobody knows what this DJB case is about. This seems to be a backup plan to arrest Kejriwal anyhow and stop him from campaigning for the Lok Sabha polls".

"Nobody knows what this DJB (Delhi Jal Board) case is about. This seems to be a backup plan to arrest Kejriwal anyhow and stop him from campaigning for the Lok Sabha polls," she claimed at a press conference here. Atishi said two summonses asking Kejriwal to appear before the federal agency next week were received hours after the Lok Sabha poll date announcement on Saturday. One of them is related to the excise policy case and the other to the DJB, she added. The AAP leader charged that the BJP was using ED and CBI as its "goons" to finish off political opponents.

Atishi said the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi do not respect the judicial process.  “They are not waiting for the outcome of the legal process, or the court's decision. For them, the court holds no significance, the investigation holds no significance, the truth holds no significance,” she said.

The ED, in the DJB case, has alleged that bribe money generated from corruption in a contract issued by this Delhi government department was "passed on" as election funds to the AAP that currently rules the national capital.

The agency launched a money laundering probe relates to a first information report (FIR) filed by the Anti-Corruption Branch of Delhi government in November 2022, in which DJB awarded a tender for setting up automotive bill payment collection machines (kiosks) at different locations in different DJB offices.The kiosks were set up to facilitate consumers in bill payment through various modes of payments including cash and cheques and the tender was awarded to Corporation Bank in 2012, which was further sub-contracted to Chennai-based private companies Freshpay IT Solutions Pvt Ltd and Aurrum E-payments Pvt Ltd.

The ED alleges that these companies violated norms as prescribed in the agreement by not depositing the cash payment collections in the bank account of the DJB, as stipulated in the agreement, and not transferring the same to DJB within the prescribed time period.

ED maintains that previous search operations on July 24, 2023, and November 17, 2023, resulted in the seizure of incriminating documents and evidence related to the case. The ED raided the premises of Kejriwal's personal assistant Bibhav Kumar, AAP Rajya Sabha MP N D Gupta, former DJB member Shalabh Kumar, chartered accountant Pankaj Mangal and some others as part of this investigation in February.

The ED arrested Arora and a contractor named Anil Kumar Aggarwal in this case on January 31.

 In the case of excise policy, a city court on Saturday had granted bail to Kejriwal on two complaints filed by the agency against him for skipping six of the previous eight summons in this case.The ED had moved the magisterial court seeking Kejriwal's prosecution for not attending the summonses issued to him in the case.The agency arrested BRS leader K Kavitha in this case two days back.

Kejriwal's name has been mentioned multiple times in charge sheets filed by the ED in the excise policy case. The agency has said that the accused were in touch with Kejriwal regarding the preparation of the excise policy for 2021-22.