Kavitha Moves Supreme Court Against ED Summons

The Supreme Court today agreed to hear on March 24, a plea by Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) MLC Kalvakuntla Kavitha against her questioning by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), and also seeking protection from arrest by the agency, in a money laundering case connected with alleged irregularities in the Delhi excise policy scam.

The ED has summoned her for another round of questioning on March 16.

The matter was brought up by her counsel for urgent listing before a bench headed by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud, who refused immediate hearing and scheduled the matter for March 24.

Senior advocate Vikram Chaudhari, representing Kavitha, contended that she had appeared before the ED earlier this month, and the repeated summons were against the law because the petitioner was a woman.

He argued in the plea that the ED had filed a remand application for one of the accused on November 30, 2022, before the court, which contained her personal contact details for no reason as the remand application did not even concern her. "The act is all the more egregious considering the petitioner is a lady," the petition said.

Kavitha's plea also said that her name had not been mentioned in the FIR registered by the CBI in connection with the case.

"And despite the petitioner not being named in the FIR, certain members of the ruling political party at the Centre made scandalous statements linking the petitioner to the Delhi excise policy," said the plea.

Kavitha accused the ED of acting in an "extremely shameful" manner and as per a "larger conspiracy orchestrated at the behest of the members of the incumbent ruling party at the Centre".

She claimed the the ED was eliciting false statements from other witnesses by threatening to place them and their family members under arrest.

"The petitioner believes that the investigation against her is nothing more than a fishing expedition being undertaken by the ED solely at the behest of the incumbent ruling political party," the plea said.

It further contended that the ED, in the teeth of settled law, summoned her to appear before its offices in New Delhi and had confiscated her cellular phone without any written order for production of the phone.

The plea claimed that the petitioner apprehended that she would be physically and mentally coerced by the ED, and stressed that there was no case against her.

It added that the only basis on which she had been implicated was on the basis of certain statements of a few persons who had given statements incriminating themselves as well as allegedly against her.

Kavitha had earlier been questioned by the CBI in the case.

It is being alleged that Kavitha held benami investment in Indospiritis, a liquor firm involved in the scam.

The ED alleges that Hyderabad-based businessman Arun Ramchandra Pillai represents Kavitha in Indospirits.

The investigating agency has also alleged the South lobby, which included Kavitha, bribed the AAP government to formulate an excise policy to facilitate their companies to win the bids and to form a cartel and control the retail outlets in Delhi.

Former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia is already under the ED's custody in the same case.