BRS leader K 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 political party that rules Delhi, the Enforcement Directorate alleged on Monday.
Forty-six-year-old Kavitha, the MLC daughter of former Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao, was arrested by the federal agency last week from her Hyderabad home and she is in the ED custody till March 23.
Probe found, the ED claimed in a statement, that Kavitha along with others "conspired with the top leaders of AAP including Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia for getting favours in the Delhi excise policy-formulation and implementation." "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 kickbacks from the wholesalers was generated for the AAP, it said.
It alleged that "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 agency, while seeking the remand of Kavitha last week, told the special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court that she was "one of the kingpins, a key conspirator and beneficiary of the Delhi excise policy scam".
Kavitha asserted earlier that she had done nothing wrong and alleged that the Centre was "using" the ED as the BJP could not gain a "backdoor entry" into Telangana.
The Aam Aadmi Party has accused the BJP was using ED and CBI as its "goons" to finish off political opponents.
The agency said it has conducted searches at 245 locations across the country since the registration of a case in 2022 and has arrested 15 persons, including former Delhi deputy CM and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Manish Sisodia, AAP leader Sanjay Singh and some liquor businessmen.
It has filed a total of six charge sheets in this case till now and had attached assets worth over Rs 128 crore.
The ED and the CBI have alleged that the Delhi government's excise policy to grant licences to liquor traders allowed cartelisation and favoured certain dealers who had allegedly paid bribes for it, a charge strongly refuted by the AAP.
The policy was subsequently scrapped and Delhi Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena recommended a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the irregularities in its formulation and implementation. Later, the ED registered a case under the PMLA.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
Featured Video Of The Day
"Prove With Pics Crime Scene Intact": Court To Bengal Over Hospital Vandalism
4 Arrested In Chinese-linked Online Betting App Fraud Worth Rs 400 Crore Acting Enforcement Directorate Chief Rahul Navin Appointed Full-Time Head Haryana Congress MLA's Assets Seized By Probe Agency In Money Laundering Case Parents Gave Names Of Interns, Doctors To CBI In Kolkata Horror: Sources Who Is Jasveen Sangha, "Ketamine Queen" Charged With Matthew Perry's Death How Extreme Weather Is Leading To Rise In Child Marriages In Pakistan Two Sisters Returning From Court Run Over By Car In UP: Cops India Sends 1,400 kg Anti-Cancer Drugs To Syria In Humanitarian Assistance Police Arrest Suspect In Bihar Dalit Girl Kidnapping, Murder Case Track Latest News Live on NDTV.com and get news updates from India and around the world.