A Delhi court on Saturday remanded Bharat Rashtriya Samithi (BRS) legislator K Kavitha to the custody of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) till March 26 in the money laundering case linked to the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy.
The court has directed the ED to produce her at 11:00am on March 26, Tuesday.
Kavitha was arrested by ED on March 15 in Hyderabad and was later brought to Delhi. She was arrested after a day-long questioning followed by a raid at her residence. On March 16, Delhi’s Rouse Avenue Court sent Kavitha to custodial remand until March 23.
On Friday, the Supreme Court had declined to consider Kavitha’s bail petition, saying that the top court should not entertain a bail plea directly just because the petitioner happens to be a political person or can afford to come straight to it.
The bench of justices Sanjiv Khanna, MM Sundresh, and Bela M Trivedi emphasised that the trial court should be the first to hear any bail request, and asked Kavitha to seek her remedy from the first tier of judicial hierarchy.
Case against K Kavitha
The ED claims that Kavitha ‘conspired’ with top Aam Aadmi Party leaders, including the party supremo and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and former minister Manish Sisodia, to get favours in the Delhi liquor policy by paying ₹100 crore to the political party. Kavitha has refuted the allegations and has termed ED's actions against her as ‘illegal’.
The ED claims that Kavitha ‘conspired’ with top Aam Aadmi Party leaders, including the party supremo and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and former minister Manish Sisodia, to get favours in the Delhi liquor policy by paying ₹100 crore to the political party. Kavitha has refuted the allegations and has termed ED's actions against her as ‘illegal’.
Following her arrest, BRS leader and her brother KT Rama Rao lashed out at the BJP-led government at the Centre. In a post on X, he wrote, “Abuse of power and institutional misuse to settle political scores is something that has become increasingly common with BJP govt in last 10 years…”
“ED needs to answer Supreme Court on the inordinate rush to arrest when the matter is very much sub-judice & up for review in a couple of days, on the 19th March. What’s even more appalling is the ED undermining it’s own undertaking given to the Hon’ble Supreme Court," he added.
The ED questioned Kavitha thrice last year in this case and again summoned her this year but she did not depose citing a Supreme Court direction that allowed her protection from any coercive action.
Kavitha was also earlier questioned by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in connection with the case.