ED grills Kavitha for 11 hours
NAVEENA GHANATE
Hyderabad
BRS leader K. Kavitha was grilled by the Enforcement Directorate for around 11 hours on Monday after she appeared before the agency for a second round of questioning in the Delhi excise policy-linked money laundering case, officials said.
Kavitha has been summoned to appear again on Tuesday at 11 am. It is not known whether Kavitha will appear before the ED on Tuesday.
Dressed in a green saree, Kavitha entered the ED headquarters in central Delhi at around 10:30 am, and her questioning and recording of statements began at around 11 am and continued beyond 8:45 pm.
The 44-year-old MLC, daughter of Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, was first questioned on March 11 for around nine hours following which she was summoned again on March 16.
Kavitha had skipped the questioning last week citing her pending plea before the Supreme Court for relief against the ED action. The ED rejected her claims and asked her to appear for questioning on March 20. The SC has decided to hear her petition on March 24.
The BRS leader’s statement was recorded under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
Kavitha is believed to have been physically confronted with Pillai and her former auditor Butchibabu Gorantla during Monday’s session.
Kavitha asserted that she had done nothing wrong and alleged that the BJP-led Centre was “using” the ED as the saffron party could not achieve a “backdoor entry” into Telangana.
Pillai, the ED had said, “represented the South Group,” an alleged liquor cartel linked to Kavitha and others, that paid kickbacks amounting to about Rs 100 crore to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to gain a larger share of the market in the national capital under the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy for 2020-21.
The “South Group,” according to the ED, comprises Sarath Reddy (promoter of Aurobindo Pharma), Magunta Srinivasulu Reddy (YSR Congress MP from Ongole in AP), his son Raghav Magunta, Kavitha and others.
The ED also alleged in Pillai’s remand papers that he “represented the proxy investments” of Kavitha in the case.
Kavitha was earlier questioned by the CBI in connection with the case at her residence in Hyderabad.
The ED has arrested 12 people in the case, including former Delhi deputy chief minister and AAP leader Manish Sisodia.
It has also recorded the statement of Butchibabu, an accountant allegedly linked to Kavitha, in which he said that “there was a political understanding between Kavitha and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and deputy chief minister Sisodia. Kavitha also met Vijay Nair on March 19 and 20, 2021.”
Nair was arrested in the case by both the ED and the CBI. Butchibabu was arrested by the CBI and was questioned recently again by the ED.
According to Butchibabu’s statement, Nair was “trying to impress Kavitha with what he could do in the excise policy.”
“Vijay Nair was acting on behalf of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia,” the statement recorded by the ED read.
It is alleged that the Delhi government’s excise policy for 2021-22 to grant licences to liquor traders allowed cartelisation and favoured certain dealers who had allegedly paid bribes for it, a charge strongly refuted by the AAP.
The policy was subsequently scrapped and the Delhi Lieutenant Governor recommended a CBI probe, following which the ED registered a case under PMLA.
