Supreme Court refuses urgent hearing of Kavitha plea against ED summons

A day before her second round of questioning by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with the Delhi government's now-scrapped excise policy, Bharat Rashtra Samithi leader K Kavitha on Wednesday moved the Supreme Court to challenge the summons issued to her.

Her counsel urged the court to quash the ED summons dated March 7 and 11, asking her to appear before the federal agency office, arguing that as pre the tenets of criminal jurisprudence, a woman should rather be questioned at her residence.

A two-judge bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justice PS Narasimha, however, refused to grant an urgent hearing of the case or stay the summons issued to the daughter of Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao for Thursday. Her plea will now come up for hearing on March 24.


In a related development, ED on Wednesday questioned Butchi Babu Gorantla, Kavitha's former auditor for his alleged role in the same case. Babu was questioned by the agency for nearly nine hours on March 11.Kavitha was confronted with Hyderabad-based businessman Arun Ramchandran Pillai - who the agency alleged is her frontman - and the alleged disclosures made by Pillai and other co-accused to the agency under relevant provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), those in the know said. ED had also sought access to a mobile phone Kavitha used in 2021-2022, when the Delhi excise policy was created. She had submitted it.