No bail for K Kavitha, SC tells BRS leader to approach trial court for relief in Delhi liquor scam case

The Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain BRS leader K Kavitha's bail plea. The court, however, issued a notice on her plea challenging certain provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). 

A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna, MM Sundresh and Bela M Trivedi asked Kavitha to approach the trial court, saying it is a practice which this court is following and cannot bypass the protocol. 

The bench in its notice has given ED six weeks' time to reply on the plea. 
The petition challenging the provisions will come up with the pending matters, the bench told senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Kavitha. 

At the outset, Sibal said that people are being arrested on the basis of an approver's statement. The bench said it is not going into the merit of the case at the moment. Kavitha has moved the top court challenging her arrest by the ED in connection with the Delhi excise policy case. A member of the Telangana Legislative Council and daughter of former state chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao, Kavitha was arrested on March 15 and remanded to the ED's custody till March 23 in the case. 

Kavitha and some others "conspired" with top AAP leaders, including Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia, to get favours in the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy by paying Rs 100 crore to the party, ED has alleged.

"In exchange of these favours, she was involved in paying Rs 100 crore to the leaders of AAP," the agency said. By the 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, ED said.