SC tags BRS leader Kavitha's plea with pending cases challenging ED summons
Delhi excise policy case
New Delhi (PTI): The Supreme Court on Monday tagged with other pleas, the petition of BRS leader K Kavitha seeking protection from arrest and challenging the summons by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case arising out of the alleged Delhi excise policy scam.
A bench of justices Ajay Rastogi and Bela M Trivedi said it will hear the petitions of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader and others after three weeks.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal informed the bench that a similar plea filed by Nalini Chidambaram, a senior advocate and wife of Congress leader P Chidambaram, is pending on a similar issue of summoning of women accused by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and Additional Solicitor General (ASG) SV Raju said after filing of Nalini Chidambaram's petition, a judgement was passed by a three-judge bench upholding the provisions of the Prevention of the Money Laundering Act, which squarely covers the provisions for summoning an accused.
The bench said it would be appropriate if all the petitions are heard together, and listed the matter after three weeks.
Mehta sought permission to file a detailed note on the issue, which the bench allowed.
On March 15, the top court agreed to hear Kavitha plea seeking protection from arrest and challenging the summons issued by the ED.
On March 11, the 44-year-old BRS leader deposed before the ED to record her statement and was summoned again on March 16 for questioning. She was last quizzed for about 10 hours on March 21, which was her third day of deposition before the agency.
The BRS leader has denied all allegations against her.
Kavitha, during her questioning by the ED, was confronted with statements made by Hyderabad-based businessman Arun Ramchandran Pillai, who has been arrested in the case, apart from those of a few others allegedly involved in the case, according to official sources.
Kavitha's statement was recorded under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
Pillai was arrested by the ED earlier and he has moved a city court accusing the ED of forging his statements.
The ED had said Pillai "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 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 Andhra Pradesh), his son Raghav Magunta, Kavitha and others.
The agency had also alleged in Pillai's remand papers that he "represented the benami investments" of Kavitha, who has also been questioned by the Central Bureau of Investigation in connection with the case.
The ED has so far arrested 12 people in the case, including former Delhi deputy chief minister and AAP leader Manish Sisodia.
It has recorded the statement of Butchi Babu, a chartered accountant allegedly linked to Kavitha, where he said "there was a 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 19-20, 2021."
Nair was arrested in the case by both ED and CBI. Butchi Babu has been arrested by CBI.
According to Butchi Babu'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 said.
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 the case under the PMLA.
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Congress standing with CM Siddaramaiah, will support him, says party President Kharge
Bengaluru (PTI): Congress President M Mallikarjun Kharge on Friday said the party is standing with Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and will support him as he faces a probe by Lokayukta police in the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) site allotment case.
Rejecting BJP's demand for Siddaramaiah's resignation, he noted that "neither a chargesheet is filed, nor he is convicted," and said, "let the law take its own course, and when a situation comes, the party will examine."
"When the Godhra incident happened, whether (Narendra) Modi ji had resigned (as the then Gujarat CM)? Several cases were also pending against him at that time, even against Mr Shah (Union Home Minister Amit Shah)," Kharge said in response to a question on BJP questioning CM's moral right to continue, with FIR slated to be registered against him.
Speaking to reporters here, he said: "Don't target a particular person to damage his image, through him the party will also be damaged. Your (BJP) interest is to damage the Congress party, not the individual. He may be here today or may not be, the party will continue. Just to destroy the Congress party and the Congress party's base votes, they want to destroy, that is why they are doing this."
Let the law take its own course, and when a situation comes, the party will examine it at that time, he further said. "Now nothing is there, (but) every day I'm seeing that MUDA, MUDA. Crores of rupees (have been) swallowed by industrialists, Rs 16 lakh crore of their debt have been written off, and now you are taking one small issue and fighting. That too neither chargesheet is filed, nor he is convicted. Every day this is news. I'm fed up seeing all these things."
Asked whether the Congress high command will stand with the Chief Minister, even after the registering of FIR, Kharge said: "that is a hypothetical question. We are standing with him, we will support him, because he represents the party, not (an) individual."
A Special Court here on Wednesday ordered a Lokayukta police probe against Siddaramaiah in the case, setting the stage for filing of an FIR against him.
The order of the Special Court Judge, Santhosh Gajanan Bhat, came a day after the High Court upheld the sanction granted by the Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot to conduct an investigation against Siddaramaiah on the allegations of illegalities in the allotment of 14 sites to his wife B M Parvathi by MUDA.
The Special Court exclusively to deal with criminal cases related to former and elected MPs/MLAs issued the order directing the Lokayukta police in Mysuru to initiate an investigation on the complaint filed by RTI activist Snehamayi Krishna.
In the MUDA site allotment case, it is alleged that compensatory sites were allotted to Siddaramaiah's wife in an upmarket area in Mysuru, which had higher property value as compared to the location of her land which had been "acquired" by MUDA.
The MUDA had allotted plots to Parvathi under a 50:50 ratio scheme in lieu of 3.16 acres of her land, where it developed a residential layout.
Under the controversial scheme, MUDA allotted 50 per cent of developed land to the land losers in lieu of undeveloped land acquired from them for forming residential layouts.
It is alleged that Parvathi had no legal title over this 3.16 acres of land at survey number 464 of Kasare village, Kasaba hobli of Mysuru taluk.
