Supreme Court denies relief to Kavitha in Liquorgate case; ED summons issued to BRS MLC

On Monday, the Supreme Court heard the case of Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) MLC K Kavitha, who had challenged the summons issued to her by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the Delhi excise policy scam case. However, the court did not grant any interim relief to Kavitha and posted the case for further hearing after three weeks. Kavitha, who is a Member of the Legislative Council in Telangana, had already appeared before the ED three times prior to Monday’s hearing. Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, who represented Kavitha, raised concerns about where Kavitha would be interrogated and stated that similar issues had been addressed in petitions by Nalini Chidambaram and Abhishek Banerjee. The Supreme Court refused to stay the ED summons against Kavitha but agreed to examine the legal point of whether a woman can be summoned to the ED office under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) of Indian laws. The court also combined Kavitha’s plea with Nalini Chidambaram’s earlier petition, which was already pending before it.