Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) leader K. Kavitha was taken to Delhi’s DDU Hospital on Tuesday evening after her health deteriorated. She is currently lodged in Tihar jail in connection with the Delhi excise policy case.
K. Kavitha was arrested on March 15 of this year. Six days later, the Enforcement Directorate arrested Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in a money laundering probe related to the same case. Initially, K. Kavitha was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate, and the next month, she was arrested by the CBI. She is accused of being part of a group that allegedly gave the AAP kickbacks amounting to Rs 100 crore in exchange for formulating a favourable liquor policy.
Earlier this month, K. Kavitha approached a Delhi court seeking “default” bail in the corruption case. In her bail plea, K. Kavitha’s lawyer argued that the chargesheet against her was incomplete. The plea stated that the law requires the CBI to file a complete charge sheet within 60 days of arrest, but she had spent more time in jail than that.
“It is clear that the third supplementary chargesheet has been filed solely to prevent the release of the applicant on default bail and to circumvent the mandate of Section 309(2) of the Cr.P.C. Such incomplete investigations, aimed at violating the applicant’s right to default bail, cannot be upheld in law,” the plea said. The court later scheduled the matter for a further hearing on July 22.
In June, the CBI filed a supplementary chargesheet against Kavitha, claiming there was sufficient evidence to prosecute her in the corruption case. Earlier, she had been questioned by the CBI inside the jail about WhatsApp chats recovered from co-accused Buchi Babu’s phone and about a sum of Rs 100 crore allegedly paid to the party.
The ED and the CBI had alleged that irregularities were committed while modifying the excise policy, undue favours were extended to license holders, the license fee was waived or reduced, and the L-1 license was extended without the competent authority’s approval.