Delhi liquor policy case: TRS leader Kavitha's name figures in ED's remand report

The name of TRS leader K. Kavitha has surfaced in the remand report filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday for the remand of businessman Amit Arora in Delhi liquor policy scam.

Kavitha, a member of Telangana Legislative Council and daughter of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has been named as one of the members of 'South Group'.

According to the remand report, businessman Vijay Nair, who has already been arrested in the case, received kickbacks of Rs 100 crore on behalf of AAP leaders from a group, called 'South Group'.

The remand report says that the policy promoted cartel formations through back door awarded exorbitant wholesale (12 per cent) and huge retail (185 per cent) profit margins and incentivized other illegal activities on account of criminal conspiracy of leaders of AAP.

"The 12 per cent margin to the wholesalers was devised to extract half of it as a kickback to the AAP leaders. As per the investigation carried so far, Vijay Nair, on behalf of leaders of AAP has at least received kickbacks to the tune of Rs 100 crore from a group called South Group (controlled by Sarath Reddy, K. Kavitha, Magunta Srinivasulu Reddy) by various persons including Amit Arora. The same has been disclosed by the arrestee Amit Arora in his statements," reads the report.

This is the first time that Kavitha's name has figured in the investigation.

It was in August that BJP MP Parvesh Varma and former MLA Manjinder Singh Sirsa had made allegations linking her to the scam.

On a defamation case filed by Kavitha, City Civil Court in Hyderabad, in an interim order, had directed the BJP leaders not to make any defamatory statements against Kavitha.

Kavitha had termed the allegations 'completely baseless'. Stating that the BJP government has all agencies in their hands, she said they can do whatever investigations required and she would completely cooperate.

Kavitha had claimed that BJP was trying to tarnish the reputation of Chief Minister KCR's family by making baseless allegations as he had been vocal in criticising policies of the BJP government.