ED searches against Delhi CM Kejriwal's personal secretary, AAP Rajya Sabha MP

New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday searched premises of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's personal secretary Bibhav Kumar, Rajya Sabha MP ND Gupta and others in connection with a money laundering case relating to "bribes" generated from DJB tendering process routed to AAP as elections funds.

The investigators started the searches at around 7 am at the premises of Bibhav Kumar, former Delhi Jal Board (DJB) member Shalabh Kumar, offices of Gupta and a Chartered Accountant (CA) Pankaj Manga among others. Around 10 premises in Delhi were searched.

The ED is investigating a money laundering case involving alleged irregularities in the tendering process of the DJB. The ED has arrested retired Jal Board chief engineer Jagdish Kumar Arora and contractor Anil Kumar Aggarwal on January 31.

Last Saturday, the ED had approached a court against Kejriwal for not honouring a summons to join a probe into the money laundering case linked to he controversial Delhi excise policy. The actions against AAP came days after the ED arrested then Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, who resigned from the post.

AAP alleged that the raids were an attempt by the ruling BJP to "scare and silence" the AAP. Delhi Minister Atishi claimed the statements of witnesses and accused related to the excise policy case were extracted by the probe agency by force and threat.

"The ED is coercing, threatening people to give false statements against AAP leaders in the excise policy case...It has deleted audio recordings of witness statements. We challenge them to produce them in front of the country," she told reporters.

The ED case is based on a CBI FIR in which the latter claimed that Arora awarded some contracts to NKG Infrastructure Ltd for Rs 38 crore "despite the fact that the company did not meet the technical eligibility criteria". The company is accused of obtaining the bid by allegedly submitting forged documents.

Arora allegedly received a "bribe" and passed it on to Bibhav, Shalab Kumar, Pankaj Mangal and others. It was then passed on to AAP as election funds.