The Enforcement Directorate questioned Delhi Minister Kailash Gahlot for about five hours on Saturday and recorded his statement in connection with a money-laundering investigation linked to the AAP government’s now-scrapped excise policy, officials said.
Gahlot (49), an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA from Najafgarh, is the Minister for Transport, Home and Law in the Delhi Government led by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who has been arrested in the case by the federal agency.
The minister, who entered the ED office in central Delhi around 11:30 am and left after 4:30 pm, said he answered all the questions from the agency and will continue to cooperate in the probe.
Sources said Gahlot was questioned with regard to the formulation of the excise policy for 2021-22 as he was part of the Group of Ministers (GoM), along with former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia and former urban development minister Satyendar Jain.
Gahlot said he was called by the ED for questioning in the case as “probably I was part of the GoM… It (questioning) was about all aspects of the policy and I answered to the best of my knowledge and memory.”
He said this was the second summons sent to him as he could not depose for the first time about a month back as the Budget session of the Delhi assembly was on.
In this case, the investigating agencies have already arrested many AAP leaders including Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. The investigating agency says that Kailash Gehlot was part of the group which had prepared the draft of this liquor policy.This draft was leaked to the group of South. Kailash Gehlot is also accused of giving his official residence to Southern liquor businessman Vijay Nair.
The ED had earlier also said that during this period Kailash Gehlot had also changed his mobile number several times. According to reports, Kailash Gehlot stated, “Vijay Nair lives in my government residence; my family did not relocate for personal reasons.” He responded by saying, “If ED calls me, I will come forward also.” He went on to say, “I have no information about Atishi being in-charge of Goa elections.”
“If the channels do not clear such baseless and demeaning content in a week, more legal action will be initiated against them,” Rama Rao said, adding that YouTube was also served with legal notices.
Apart from a few YouTube channels, some media organizations were also involved in the planned and malicious attempts, he said, asking the channels to publish factual news reports, failing which they should be prepared to receive more legal notices, besides facing cases.
