Kavitha Skips Appearance Before ED, Sends Documents Instead

In a dramatic turn of events, BRS MLC Kalvakuntla Kavitha skipped appearing before the Enforcement Directorate in New Delhi today in connection with the Delhi liquor policy case.

Instead, she sent her party general secretary Soma Bharath Kumar to the ED office to represent her along with some documents.

The ED then issued fresh summons to Kavitha to appear in person on March 20.

In the letter sent to the ED, Kavitha said that as the summons did not explicitly say that she needed to appear in person, she was sending her "authorised representative".

She also said that she had filed a petition in front of the Supreme Court seeking to be exempted from the investigation, and that the SC had scheduled a hearing on March 24, and that she would appear only after that.

"I humbly beseech your good self that the proceedings before the Supreme Court being sacred and sacrosanct, the outcome thereof must be awaited before any further proceedings take place with respect to the subject summons (sic)," she said.

She also seemed to claim that she was a woman and so was entitled to exemption from physical presence at the ED office.

"I being a woman and protected by the postulates of law, may not be called to the office of Directorate and that I was always willing and ready to appear through audio/video mode and had also invited the officers at my residence which is as per the mandate of law. However, your good self has denied my request (sic)," she said in the letter. The ED had denied her request saying that a confrontation with a person in ED custody was required and so she needed to be physically present in the ED office, but no such confrontation actually took place on March 11, Kavitha claimed.

The daughter of Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao was questioned for hours by the Enforcement Directorate in the case on March 11. She was summoned again on March 16.

Kavitha has alleged a political conspiracy behind the ED summons. She has alleged that she was summoned by the probe agency on the basis of statements made under threat and coercion.

Her party leaders have also said that the probe agency has become an extended arm of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Hyderabad-based liquor businessman Arun Ramchandra Pillai, who was arrested in connection with the case on Monday night, and Hyderabad-based chartered accountant Buchibabu, Kavitha's former auditor, were also questioned on Wednesday. The investigators have linked Kavitha with both of them, calling them part of the "South Group".

The ED has so far arrested 12 people in the case, including former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, who is accused of favouring the South Group while framing the Delhi excise policy.

Kavitha's statement was recorded under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).