Kavitha plotted with CM, Sisodia, involved in Rs 100 crore payoff, says ED | India News
NEW DELHI: Two days after the arrest of K Kavitha, daughter of former Telangana CM K Chandrasekhar Rao, the Enforcement Directorate on Monday named Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal and former deputy CM Manish Sisodia as her co-conspirators in the alleged liquor policy scam.
“K Kavitha, along with others, conspired with… Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia, for getting favours in Delhi excise policy formulation and implementation.In exchange for these favours, she was involved in paying Rs 100 crore to the leaders,” ED said.
Rebutting ED’s claims, AAP said, “On earlier occasions too, ED had released such blatantly false and frivolous statements which show that instead of being a neutral investigative agency, it is working like a political wing of BJP.” It said ED’s charges are a “desperate attempt” to malign the image of Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia by “planting falsehoods and creating a media sensation” every day.ED claimed in its statement that, “By acts of corruption and conspiracy… a continuous stream of illegal funds in the form of kickbacks from the wholesalers was generated for AAP. Further, K Kavitha and her associates were to recover the proceeds of crime paid in advance to AAP and to further generate profits/proceeds of crime from this entire conspiracy.”
The statement pushes ED’s interest in Kejriwal several notches up. It was in response to a poser from Supreme Court, during the hearing on a bail plea by Sisodia in Oct last year, that ED for the first time said it was looking at the role of the AAP leadership in the alleged scam. It followed through by issuing summons to Kejriwal. The CM, while refusing to appear before ED, has argued that the summonses were vague as to whether he was being called as a witness or an accused.
In its response, AAP said that “even the SC has discarded ED’s claim that any money trail of Rs 100 crore exists in this matter. The entire world knows by now that the entire excise case is fake and without an iota of evidence”.
“ED’s statement, which presents no new fact or evidence, speaks volumes of its frustration since they have not recovered a single rupee or piece of evidence… despite carrying out over 500 raids and questioning thousands of witnesses,” AAP said.
“For the last two years, ED has been trying to find the proceeds of crime in this case… But we now know that almost all the companies who have given electoral bonds to BJP were earlier raided by ED. That means companies accused by ED of money laundering transferred their proceeds of crime to BJP accounts immediately after being raided … So if ED is interested in finding the proceeds of crime… it exists in BJP’s accounts,” AAP claimed.
In its statement, ED also brought on record that its officers faced obstructions from Kavitha’s relatives when they were searching her residence on March 15, just before her arrest — a reference to investigator Bhanupriya Meena’s altercation with Kavitha’s brother K T Rama Rao.
ED, which has filed six chargesheets in the excise policy case, has arrested 15 people and claims to have traced ‘proceeds of crime’ of Rs 129 crore, attaching assets of an equivalent amount.
“K Kavitha, along with others, conspired with… Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia, for getting favours in Delhi excise policy formulation and implementation.In exchange for these favours, she was involved in paying Rs 100 crore to the leaders,” ED said.
Rebutting ED’s claims, AAP said, “On earlier occasions too, ED had released such blatantly false and frivolous statements which show that instead of being a neutral investigative agency, it is working like a political wing of BJP.” It said ED’s charges are a “desperate attempt” to malign the image of Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia by “planting falsehoods and creating a media sensation” every day.ED claimed in its statement that, “By acts of corruption and conspiracy… a continuous stream of illegal funds in the form of kickbacks from the wholesalers was generated for AAP. Further, K Kavitha and her associates were to recover the proceeds of crime paid in advance to AAP and to further generate profits/proceeds of crime from this entire conspiracy.”
The statement pushes ED’s interest in Kejriwal several notches up. It was in response to a poser from Supreme Court, during the hearing on a bail plea by Sisodia in Oct last year, that ED for the first time said it was looking at the role of the AAP leadership in the alleged scam. It followed through by issuing summons to Kejriwal. The CM, while refusing to appear before ED, has argued that the summonses were vague as to whether he was being called as a witness or an accused.
In its response, AAP said that “even the SC has discarded ED’s claim that any money trail of Rs 100 crore exists in this matter. The entire world knows by now that the entire excise case is fake and without an iota of evidence”.
“ED’s statement, which presents no new fact or evidence, speaks volumes of its frustration since they have not recovered a single rupee or piece of evidence… despite carrying out over 500 raids and questioning thousands of witnesses,” AAP said.
“For the last two years, ED has been trying to find the proceeds of crime in this case… But we now know that almost all the companies who have given electoral bonds to BJP were earlier raided by ED. That means companies accused by ED of money laundering transferred their proceeds of crime to BJP accounts immediately after being raided … So if ED is interested in finding the proceeds of crime… it exists in BJP’s accounts,” AAP claimed.
In its statement, ED also brought on record that its officers faced obstructions from Kavitha’s relatives when they were searching her residence on March 15, just before her arrest — a reference to investigator Bhanupriya Meena’s altercation with Kavitha’s brother K T Rama Rao.
ED, which has filed six chargesheets in the excise policy case, has arrested 15 people and claims to have traced ‘proceeds of crime’ of Rs 129 crore, attaching assets of an equivalent amount.
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