Delhi Excise scam: Kavitha summoned again after ED grills BRS leader for over 10 hours

NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has once again summoned Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader K Kavitha on Tuesday after the probing agency questioned the Telangana MLC  for over 10 hours in connection with her alleged role in the multi-crore Delhi excise policy scam case on Monday.

Kavitha, daughter of Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao, left the ED office at around 9.15 pm waving the victory sign. She is expected to appear before the ED today.

Kavitha, daughter of Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, was first questioned in the case on March 11 for close to nine hours, following which she was summoned again on March 16. However, she skipped the deposition citing her pending plea before the Supreme Court against the ED action. The ED rejected her reason and directed her to depose on March 20. The apex court will hear Kavitha’s petition on March 24.

The central agency has also filed a caveat in the SC, requesting that its submission be heard before passing any order on her petition. The ED is questioning the 44-year-old Telangana politician over her alleged involvement in the Delhi liquor policy formulation, her association with other accused named in the chargesheet, and her link to the liquor cartel known as the South Group.

Kavitha is being questioned over allegations of her involvement in the Delhi Excise policy. The central agency is probing her role in the South Group of liquor traders, which has been touted as the biggest beneficiary in the policy, and her links to several suspects named in the chargesheets.

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Kavitha reportedly is a key member of the South Group of liquor traders which allegedly paid an advance of Rs 100 crore to secure favourable tweaks in the policy. The tweaks secured by South Group allegedly lead to massive cartelization at multiple vending levels violating suggestions of the expert committee and also led to the generation of windfall benefit to the liquor traders through increased commissions, parts of which was paid back allegedly to AAP through various middlemen.

The ED claims that several liquor traders benefitted from the policy and passed on part of the windfall gains to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which is in power in Delhi, as advance. Meanwhile, the Delhi government exchequer had suffered an alleged loss of Rs 2873 crores in the wake of this excise policy.

The former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, also the Excise Minister of the AAP-run government then, has been accused of formulating, endorsing and implementing the controversial policy.

In a related development, a Delhi court on Monday extended the judicial custody of Hyderabad-based businessman Arun Ramachandran Pillai till April 3. Pillai, an alleged frontman of South Group, was arrested in a money-laundering case related to the Delhi excise policy scam. It is alleged that he is Kavitha’s benami. Pillai owns a 32.5 per cent stake in the business entity that was a major beneficiary of the Excise Policy scam and Kavitha was allegedly a major stakeholder in that entity.

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