NEW DELHI: BRS leader K Kavitha was questioned for about 10 hours on Tuesday-the third day of her deposition before the Enforcement Directorate even as she submitted some mobile phones used by her to the agency in connection with the Delhi excise policy-linked money laundering case.
According to sources, the daughter of Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao reached the ED office in central Delhi from the Tughlaq Road official residence of her father around 11:30 am and left shortly after 9:40 pm.
In a letter written to the investigating officer of the case, the 44-year-old leader of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) said: “These phones are submitted without prejudice to my right and contentions and larger contentions whether a woman’s phone can be intruded, in the teeth of her right to privacy.” The letter came as she submitted her cell phones to the ED before entering the office.
Kavitha said, “It is baffling to note as to how, why and under what such circumstances the agency made such allegations when I was not even summoned or asked any questions whatsoever.” Accusing the ED of making insinuations against her, the BRS leader said she is submitting the phones to dispel any notion or “adverse impression” that the agency is allegedly trying to create, said Kavitha referring to the allegations the agency levelled in the charge sheet filed last year.
According to siurces, she has also been confronted with the statements made by Hyderabad-based businessman Arun Ramchandran Pillai, an arrested accused in the case who allegedly shares close ties with her, apart from those of few others involved in the case.
As per ED 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 (AAP) to gain a larger share of the market in the national capital under the now-scrapped Delhi Excise Policy 2021-22.