A Delhi court on Saturday, March 23 extended Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) MLC K Kavitha’s Enforcement Directorate (ED) custody by three days, till March 26 for her alleged involvement in the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy. Earlier on Saturday, ED officials conducted searches at the premises of Kavitha’s close relatives at an apartment building in Madhapur area in Hyderabad.
In its application before the Delhi Rouse Avenue Court seeking Kavitha’s custody, ED called her “one of the kingpins, a key conspirator and beneficiary” of the alleged Delhi excise policy scam. It also accused Kavitha of giving false evidence when the ED previously recorded her statements. The court at that point granted ED, the custody of Kavitha, who is also the former MP of Nizamabad and former Telangana CM K Chandrashekar Rao’s (KCR) daughter, till March 23.
Three of Kavitha’s co-accused – Hyderabad-based businessman and a director of Aurobindo Pharma Limited P Sarath Chandra Reddy, Ongole MP and former YSRCP leader Magunta Sreenivasulu Reddy and his son Raghava, who are also accused in the caseturned approvers in the case last year. Sreenivasulu Reddy incidentally joined the TDP on March 16.
The ED has alleged that the people involved in the alleged scam gave kickbacks of crores of rupees to Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders to gain control over the liquor business in Delhi. It is alleged that the Delhi government's excise policy for 2021-22 to grant licences to liquor traders allowed for cartelisation and privileged certain dealers over others. The preferred dealers had allegedly paid bribes worth Rs 100 crore for the licences.
The liquor policy was scrapped soon after and a CBI probe commenced, following which the ED registered a case against the same accused under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).