NEW DELHI: India’s top court on Friday will hear Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader K Kavita’s petition challenging her arrest by the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) in a money laundering case linked to the irregularities in the Delhi excise policy.The BRS leader’s lawyer, P Mohith Rao, termed her arrest “illegal, unconstitutional, and arbitrary.”It is also to be noted that earlier on March 15, during a hearing in the top court, Kavitha’s other plea challenging the ED’s powers as to whether or not the agency has the power to summon her in light of a July 2022 judgement in the Vijay Madanlal Choudhary case was taken up, and the matter was adjourned for March 19, Tuesday. But on the same day, she was arrested by the central probe agency while it was conducting a raid and questioning her at her Hyderabad residence. Delhi’s Rouse Avenue Court, in its order on March 16, remanded Kavitha to seven-day custody with the ED for her alleged involvement in the Delhi liquor scam case. Special Judge (Prevention of Corruption Act), MK Nagpal, had directed that Kavitha remain in ED custody until March 23.Kavitha, who is the daughter of former Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, had termed her arrest a “blatant abuse of power” and has maintained her innocence in the case.The ED, in its allegation, claimed Kavitha was linked to the ‘South Group’, a lobby of liquor traders who were trying to play a larger role under the now-scraped Delhi excise policy for 2021–22. ED alleges businessman Vijay Nair, who is associated with the AAP, received kickbacks worth at least Rs 100 crore for the party’s leaders from the ‘South Group’, allegedly controlled by Aurobindo Pharma’s Sarath Reddy, Kavitha, and BRS MP Magunta Sreenivasulu Reddy.
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