New Delhi: The Supreme Court has deferred the hearing on the bail applications of Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader K Kavitha in the ED and CBI cases linked to alleged fraud in the new shelf 2021-22 Delhi liquor policy. The two agencies are the Indian Police Service and the Indian Revenue Service, and this was after Additional Solicitor General SV Raju had requested to have it adjourned. The CBI has already given its affidavit, and now it is the turn of the ED to do so within the next week.
As it may be recalled, on August 12, the Supreme Court issued a notice on Kavitha’s bail application, showing an unwanted predilection to hear the bail applications in both cases simultaneously. The Bench asked the ED to file its counter-affirmative by Thursday, giving Kavitha’s counsel a day to submit a reply. Speaking for the bench, Justices BR Gavai and KV Viswanathan, decrying elaborate counter-affidavits, stated, ‘The rule is that in the High Court, it is generally decided by reading the case diary alone.’
Kavita’s counsel, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, pointed out that Kavitha is a co-accused in the same case in which Manish Sisodia of the Aam Aadmi Party was recently granted bail. Rohatgi pointed out that Kavitha is a woman out of all the accused and deserves some leniency under section 45 of the PMLA. However, the bench believed that even the Delhi High Court had refused her bail and had stated reasons for doing so. The Supreme Court, therefore, rejected the interim bail until the time the Apex Court heard the contentions of the CBI and the ED.
Kavitha has been in jail for the last five months on conspiracy charges to influence the state’s excise policy to benefit private wine merchants.
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