NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate claims to have uncovered a deep nexus between Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao’s daughter K Kavitha and Aam Aadmi Party leaders who used proxies to exchange favours and large kickbacks in the Delhi liquor policy.
Investigation under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, it alleged, revealed a large number of tightly controlled cartels, including manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers. “Each cartel consists of a huge number of entities and persons, including proxy owners, sleeping partners, hidden investments, etc…” into which investigations are continuing, its chargesheet said.
According to the ED, Kavitha is part of a retailer-wholesaler-manufacturer cartel that earned windfall gains. It cornered bulk of the profits from the Delhi liquor business by controlling nine out of 32 retail zones and key wholesale licences, and paid huge kickbacks to AAP leaders, the ED claimed.
The agency alleged that AAP pointsperson Vijay Nair, who operated from Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s camp office, was a key dealmaker. He was tasked with generating and collecting kickbacks running into hundreds of crores of rupees, it said.
The ED said Nair influenced big liquor manufacturers such as Pernod Ricard to give their dealership to the wholesalers chosen by him. This created huge business for these wholesalers, who were then asked to part with half of their 12% profit margin as kickbacks.
Indo Spirit Distribution Ltd owner Sameer Mahendru, who was one of the chosen wholesalers of Nair, was the biggest beneficiary of the new excise policy. Nair also coerced wholesalers who were not part of his cartel to surrender their licenses, the ED said and added that this resulted in windfall profits for people like Mahendru. The going was so good for Mahendru that he agreed to part with a majority stake in his company in favour of K Kavitha and Magunta Sreenivasulu Reddy on the advice of Nair, it alleged.
The ED said Kavitha holds 32.5% in Mahendru’s company through a proxy named Arun Pillai. It said Kavitha has had multiple meetings with Mahendru and his representatives in Delhi and Hyderabad. Investigations are on to find out why Nair pressured Mahendru to give stake to Kavitha.