SC to hear BRS leader K Kavitha’s pleas on Aug 12

According to the cause list of August 12 uploaded on the apex court’s website, a bench of Justices BR Gavai and KV Viswanathan is slated to hear their petitions. While dismissing her bail pleas, the high court had said no case for grant of regular bail was made for now as the investigation is at a crucial stage.

It had rejected her plea for relief on the grounds of being a woman, saying as a well-educated person and a former MP, she cannot be equated to a vulnerable female, and the court cannot lose sight of the “serious allegations” against her .

This “court is of the opinion that K Kavitha was prima facie one of the main conspirators in the criminal conspiracy hatched in relation to formulation and implementation of Delhi Excise Policy 2021-22,” the high court had said. It had noted the material collected by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has pointed out that Kavitha was one of the chief conspirators in the entire conspiracy relating to the formulation and implementation of the policy.

In the high court, Kavitha had challenged the May 6 order of a trial court which had dismissed her bail applications in the CBI’s corruption case as well as the ED’s money-laundering case. The case pertains to alleged corruption and money laundering in the formulation and implementation of the policy.

The ED arrested Kavitha (46) from her Banjara Hills residence in Hyderabad on March 15. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested her in the Tihar jail. In her bail plea filed in the high court in the ED case, the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader, daughter of former Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao, had said she had “nothing to do” with the excise policy and there was a criminal conspiracy against her “orchestrated by the ruling party at the Center with the active connivance of the ED.”