Excise case: ED summons Kavitha for questioning

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has issued summons to Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader K Kavitha, asking her to appear before it on Friday for questioning in the Delhi excise policy 2021-22, officials familiar with the development said

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Kavitha, the daughter of Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, was earlier questioned by ED in connection with the case in March.

Responding to queries on the notice, Kavitha alleged that the summons were politically motivated, pointing to the Telangana assembly elections scheduled to be held later this year.

The Delhi government's 2021-22 excise policy aimed to revitalise the city's flagging liquor business and aimed to replace a sales-volume based regime with a licence fee-based one for traders. The policy also introduced discounts and offers on the purchase of liquor, a first for Delhi.

But the plan came to an abrupt end, with lieutenant governor VK Saxena recommending a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into alleged irregularities in the regime. This ultimately resulted in the policy being scrapped prematurely and being replaced by the 2020-21 regime, with Delhi's ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) alleging Saxena's predecessor sabotaged the move with a few last-minute changes that resulted in lower than-expected revenues.