Kavitha skips Enforcement Directorate interrogation, instead sends documents

HYDERABAD: MLC Kavitha Kalvakuntala of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) did not appear before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday. Instead, she sent BRS general secretary Soma Bharath Kumar to the ED office to inform them of her decision on her behalf.

She was summoned by the investigating agency for questioning in a money laundering case involving the Delhi liquor policy case on March 16. However, she had urged the Supreme Court for an urgent hearing, claiming that as a woman, she cannot be summoned to the ED office and that the probe agency's representatives must visit her instead.

Kavitha's lawyer who addressed the media on Thursday had sought an urgent hearing, stating her being invited to the ED office is totally against the law. He also claimed that neither the CBI nor the ED had designated her as an accused.

She had submitted the documents requested by the Enforcement Directorate through her legal representation, and she had informed the ED that the case was pending before the Supreme Court.

"I was made to sit in your nice office long after sunset till around 8:30 PM when I was finally permitted to leave and was handed over the subject summons for March 16, 2023," Kavitha claimed in her documents.

She further claimed that, "I being a woman and protected by the postulates of law, may not be called to the office of Directorate and that I was always eager and ready to appear through audio/video mode and had also invited the officers at my place which is as per the mandate of law".

Her statement further reads, "I, being a woman and protected by the postulates of law, may not be called to the Enforcement Directorate Office and that I was always willing to appear through audio or video mode and had also invited the officers to my residence, which is as per the mandate of law." However, your good self has denied my request. But I furnished all relevant information, but Enforcement Directorate chose to impound my phone despite there being no directive in the summons that I should bring the phone.

The Enforcement Directorate interrogated Kavitha for hours in the same matter on March 11. She was summoned for the third time today.

A bench comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice PS Narasimha accepted to hear her request on March 24,2023.