Aam Aadmi Party leader and Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh on Saturday sent a legal notice to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) asking it to issue a public apology within 48 hours or face civil and criminal defamation proceedings for allegedly making false and derogatory claims about him in connection with the Delhi excise policy case.
The notice, addressed to ED Director Sanjay Kumar Mishra and Additional Director Jogender, claims that the officials had “knowingly and intentionally” made certain untrue, defamatory and incriminating statements against the MP.
Mr. Singh said it is highly regrettable that an agency like the ED, which is supposed to be impartial, has resorted to levelling such “baseless” allegations against him.
“I will not tolerate this kind of character assassination and have decided to take legal action against the officials responsible,” he said.
The notice further states that the ED’s associates, agents and employees have attempted to tarnish and mutilate the AAP leader’s public image and have attempted to otherwise popularise a perverse, false, motivated, wild, malicious and baseless campaign against his alleged involvement in the policy.
The Central Bureau Of Investigation (CBI) had lodged an FIR in connection with the alleged irregularities in framing and implementation of the now-scrapped excise policy of Delhi in 2022. Based on the CBI case, the ED is conducting a money laundering probe and has arrested nine persons. The ED has so far filed three chargesheets in the case.
‘Misuse of ED’
The senior AAP leader had earlier this month accused the ED of targeting him after he spoke against the agency’s actions in Parliament.
“On December 12, I spoke out against the misuse of the ED, and just weeks later, my name was added to their chargesheet on January 6. This begs the question: has the ED become more powerful than Parliament? The fact that they can include a MP in their chargesheet without any evidence is deeply concerning,” Mr. Singh had said.
