K Kavitha, an MLC for the Bharat Rashtra Samithi ignored the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) notice on Thursday in connection with a money laundering case involving the Delhi Excise Policy.

The BRS leader had approached the Supreme Court for an urgent hearing as she claimed that being a woman she could’t be summoned to the ED office, and the probe agency’s representatives must have visited her instead. The Supreme Court had consented on Wednesday to hear her appeal against the ED summon but had declined to give her temporary relief.

Kavitha’s absence from the third round of ED interrogation showed to the investigation team that the case is still under hearing of the Supreme Court.

‘Kavitha has sent the necessary documents sought by the probe agency through her legal representatives,’ sources told.

She has been asked to appear before the ED today. Heavy security has been deployed outside her Delhi residence ahead of her questioning by ED.

The Court has given the date of 24 March to hear her petition in the Delhi Excise policy case.

The advocate for Kavitha said, “A woman is now being summoned by ED for questioning and that it is completely against the law.”

In the petition filed through advocate Vandana Sehgal, Kavitha has urged the top court to quash the ED summons dated March 7 and 11 stating that asking her to appear before the agency office instead of her residence is contrary to the settled tenets of criminal jurisprudence and thus, wholly unsustainable in law being violation of the Proviso to Section 160 of the CrPC.
She has also sought that all procedures carried out by ED, including those in relation to the recording of statements be audio or videographed in the presence of her lawyer at a visible distance inter-alia by way of installation of appropriate CCTV cameras.