A Delhi court on Wednesday asked Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to appear before it on February 17, on a complaint filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) against the Aam Aadmi Party supremo for missing five consecutive summons in relation to the liquor excise policy case.

A day earlier, premises linked to several Aam Aadmi Party leaders, including one of the closest and oldest aides of Arvind Kejriwal, were raided in a further expansion of the ambit of investigations against the embattled party.

Tuesday’s raids by the CBI, which the AAP has claimed lasted “23 hours”, were carried out in connection with alleged illegal monetary gains to a private company for the supply, installation, testing and commissioning of water meters by the Delhi Jal Board (DJB).

The raids were conducted the same day as the ED threatened legal action against AAP leader and minister Atishi for claiming lacunae in the ED’s investigation into the liquor policy case, which has seen the arrest of several senior leaders, including former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia.

The tightening net around the AAP incidentally seems to hew close to a BJP timeline, as reported by The Indian Express, of a “400-day plan” by the party – leading up to the Lok Sabha elections and continuing till the 2025 Delhi Assembly polls – against the AAP, centred around “10 specific allegations of corruption in government departments”. These included the liquor policy case, DJB allegations, charges regarding maintenance of public buses, and alleged corruption in the construction of classrooms.

Probes are now on in all the above cases, with a majority of them starting out as police complaints or inquiries by bodies such as the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Branch (which come under the Lieutenant Governor and hence the Centre’s purview), before landing on the desks of central investigation agencies.

A line-up of the cases against the party and its leaders:

The biggest albatross around the AAP’s neck is the liquor case, in which the ED has issued five summons against its supremo and Delhi CM. Kejriwal has appeared in none – mainly on the ground that he wanted to know whether he was being summoned as an accused or a witness.

The AAP has frequently claimed that the ED’s main purpose is to arrest Kejriwal – the belief further strengthened following the arrest of JMM leader Hemant Soren in Jharkhand – and declared that he would run the government from behind bars if held.

The investigation into the case began in July 2022. Two months later, the AAP government withdrew its new excise policy, but the case continued.

This is the only case so far in which Kejriwal has been questioned by the CBI and sought by the ED, though there are a slew of complaints related to various government departments and bodies naming him and demanding action against him.

The CBI is investigating whether illegal monetary gains amounting to almost Rs 40 crore were made by officials of the DJB (a department that falls under the Delhi government) in the installation of meters meant to regulate the flow of water.

The case was lodged by the CBI in 2022. Last week, the ED, which is looking into the money laundering angle of the investigation, arrested retired DJB chief engineer Jagdish Kumar Arora and others in connection with the alleged scam.

On Tuesday, the AAP leaders raided in the case included its Treasurer and Rajya Sabha MP N D Gupta and Kejriwal’s personal secretary and confidant Bibhav Kumar.

If the ED pursues the legal route against her over the charges she has made against the agency, Atishi, who now holds the maximum portfolios in the Kejriwal government – like Sisodia once did – will become the fourth person from the seven-member AAP Delhi government to have legal proceedings launched against her by a central agency.

Earlier, Satyendar Jain and Sisodia stepped down as ministers following their arrest.

The legal notice to Atishi followed her claims that the ED has failed to recover any allegedly laundered money in its many raids and detained individuals without evidence. She also questioned the witness statements submitted by the ED to courts in the liquor policy case.

Earlier, a legal notice was served by the Delhi Police to Atishi, as well as Kejriwal, over their allegations that the BJP was trying to poach AAP leaders.

Of the serving ministers, in addition to Kejriwal, Kailash Gahlot and Raaj Kumar Anand are facing inquiries by central agencies.

Several other AAP leaders too are facing investigation by central agencies, while its Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh is behind bars.

Then the Delhi Power Minister, Satyendar Jain has been under ED arrest since May 2022, in an alleged money laundering case based on a 2017 CBI FIR against him. He is accused of having laundered money through four companies allegedly linked to him.

Sisodia, then the Delhi Deputy CM and the Excise Minister when the new liquor policy was implemented, has been in jail since February 2023. He was arrested by the CBI and then by the ED, and accused of extra-procedural interference in framing the new policy, tweaking it for the benefit of select liquor entities, and causing loss of several hundred crores to the state exchequer in excise revenue.

Besides, Sisodia is being prosecuted by the CBI in an alleged corruption case related to a short-lived ‘Feed Back Unit’ dating back to 2015 – described by a Delhi Vigilance Department report as an “extra-constitutional, extra-judicial Intelligence Agency” manned by retired intelligence, police and paramilitary officials to gather “actionable feedback” on the goings-on in government departments and “trap” them.

In September 2022, AAP communications in-charge Vijay Nair was arrested by the CBI, and later by the ED, for his alleged role as a middleman between the ‘South Group’ – which allegedly gave Rs 100 crore as kickbacks to enter the liquor retail segment in the Capital – and the AAP. He is also accused of laundering money received as kickbacks for the AAP’s Goa Assembly poll campaign.

Sanjay Singh, accused of being “a key conspirator” in the liquor policy case and having “exploited and gained illegal money / kickbacks” from liquor groups, was arrested by the ED in October 2023.

The CBI is investigating a complaint of alleged irregularities in the tendering and bidding process for 1,000 buses procured by the Delhi government, as well as their maintenance, against Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot.

In November last year, Delhi Social Welfare and Labour Minister Raaj Kumar Anand’s residence was raided by the ED in relation to alleged money laundering. This was after the filing of a chargesheet by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence on charges of false declarations in imports from China leading to Customs evasion of more than Rs 7 crore, besides international hawala transactions.