The Bharat Rashtra Samithi leader K Kavitha has moved an application in the Rouse Avenue court for direction to the Tihar Jail Administrator to allow her to have home-cooked food and mattresses comply with the order dated March 26, 2024, passed by the court.
The plea stated that it is necessary for the health of the applicant that she be allowed home cooked food and provided with a with a mattress. Kavitha also sought direction to the jail superintendent, Tihar, to allow her to carry her spectacles and japa mala to the jail.
According to the plea, the applicant also seeks direction to Tihar authorities to provide slippers, bedsheets, books, blankets, pens, sheets of paper, jewellery, medicine, etc. during judicial custody.
However, in complete defiance of the order dated March 26, 2024, none of the articles as directed by the Court were provided or allowed to be carried by the applicant. The applicant has not even been allowed to carry spectacles and japa mala to the jail, plea stated.
Noting the grievance, the Special Judge Kaveri Baweja on Thursday, sought the response of Tihar Jail authorities and fixed the matter for hearing on March 30, 2024.
Advocate Nitesh Rana, along with Mohit Rao and Deepak Nagar, represented K Kavitha in the matter.
The Rouse Avenue Court sent Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) MLC K Kavitha to judicial custody on April 9, 2024. She was arrested recently in connection with a Delhi excise policy-linked money laundering case.
Directorate of Enforcement (ED) arrested K Kavitha MLC, Telangana Legislative Council, on March 15, 2024, in the case of Delhi Liquor Policy Scam. A search was also conducted at the residence of K Kavitha in Hyderabad on March 15, 2024. During the search proceedings, the ED officials were obstructed by the relatives and associates of K Kavitha, said ED through a statement.
The ED had mentioned that in its investigation it has been revealed that K Kavitha, along with others, conspired with the top leaders of AAP, including Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia, to get favours in the Delhi Excise policy-formulation and implementation. In exchange of these favours, she was involved in paying Rs. 100 Crore to the leaders of AAP.
“Through acts of corruption and conspiracy in the formulation and implementation of Delhi Excise Policy 2021-22, a continuous stream of illegal funds in the form of kickback, from the wholesalers was generated for the AAP. Further, K Kavitha and her associates were to recover the proceeds of crime paid in advance to AAP and to further generate profits/proceeds of crime from this entire conspiracy,” stated ED.
Till date, the ED has conducted searches on 245 locations across the country, including Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, Mumbai and other places. 15 people, including Manish Sisodia, Sanjay Singh and Vijay Nair from AAP, have been arrested in the case so far.
ED has filed one prosecution complaint and 5 supplementary complaints in the case so far.
Further, out of Proceeds of Crime generated, assets worth Rs. 128.79 Crore have been traced so far and have been attached vide Provisional Attachment Orders dated 24.01.2023 and 03.07.2023. Both the attachment orders have been confirmed by the Adjudicating Authority, New Delhi.
ED has filed its first chargesheet in the case. The agency said it has so far undertaken nearly 200 search operations in this case after filing FIR taking cognisance of a CBI case which was registered on the recommendation of the Delhi Lieutenant Governor.
The CBI inquiry was recommended on the findings of the Delhi Chief Secretary’s report filed in July showing prima facie violations of the GNCTD Act 1991, Transaction of Business Rules (ToBR)-1993, Delhi Excise Act-2009, and Delhi Excise Rules- 2010, officials had said.
The ED and the CBI had alleged that irregularities were committed while modifying the excise policy, undue favours were extended to licence holders, the licence fee was waived or reduced and the L-1 licence was extended without the competent authority’s approval. The beneficiaries diverted “illegal” gains to the accused officials and made false entries in their books of account to evade detection, the probe agencies said.
As per the allegations, the Excise Department had decided to refund the earnest money deposit of about Rs 30 crore to a successful tenderer against the set rules. Even though there was no enabling provision, a waiver on tendered licence fees was allowed from December 28, 2021, to January 27, 2022, due to COVID-19, the probe agency said and there was an alleged loss of Rs 144.36 crore to the exchequer.
(with inputs from ANI)
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