Delhi excise policy case: BRS leader Kavitha appears before ED

BRS leader K Kavitha deposed before the Enforcement Directorate ED here on Saturday with the agency all set to confront her with an arrested accused and record her statement in connection with its moneylaundering probe into alleged irregularities in the Delhi excise policyThe 44yearold daughter of Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao arrived at the federal agencys headquarters on APJ Abdul Kalam Road from her fathers official residence on Tughlak Road located about 15 kilometres away around 11 amThere was a heavy presence of Delhi Police and central paramilitary forces personnel for barricading the ED office even as the supporters of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi BRS leader staged a protest on APJ Abdul Kalam RoadThe ED had asked Kavitha to depose on March 9 but she had sought a fresh date due to her scheduled daylong hunger strike here on Friday seeking the passage of the longpending Womens Reservation Bill in the Budget Session of ParliamentThe BRS MLC has been called by the agency so that she can be confronted with Hyderabadbased businessman Arun Ramchandran Pillai an alleged frontman of the south group who was arrested by the ED earlier this weekThe agency will also record Kavithas statement under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act PMLAPillai is in ED custody effectively till March 12 to be produced before a court again on March 13 and the agency had earlier said he 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 nowscrapped Delhi excise policy for 202021Also Read Landforjobs scam CBI summons Bihar Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav for questioningThe south group according to the ED comprises Sarath Reddy promoter of Aurobindo Pharma Magunta Srinivasulu Reddy YSR Congress MP from the Ongole Lok Sabha seat in Andhra Pradesh his son Raghav Magunta Kavitha and othersThe ED also alleged in Pillais remand papers that he represented the benami investments of Kavitha in the caseThe BRS leader was earlier questioned by the Central Bureau of Investigation CBI in connection with the caseThe ED has so far arrested 12 people in the case including former Delhi deputy chief minister and AAP leader Manish SisodiaIt has also recorded the statement of Butchi Babu a chartered accountant allegedly linked to Kavitha where he said there was political understanding between K Kavitha and the chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and the deputy chief minister Sisodia In that process K Kavitha also met Vijay Nair on March 1920 2021Nair was arrested in the case by both the ED and the CBI Butchi Babu has been arrested by the CBIAccording to Butchi Babus statement Nair was trying to impress Kavitha with what he could do in the excise policyVijay Nair was acting on the behalf of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia the statement recorded by the ED readIt is alleged that the Delhi governments excise policy for 202122 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 AAPThe policy was subsequently scrapped and the Delhi lieutenant governor recommended a CBI probe following which the ED registered a case under the PMLAThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever