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Enforcement Directorate found that KCR’s daughter and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal’s PA too changed their phones multiple times
The Enforcement Directorate (ED)’s probe into the money laundering case involving the now scrapped Delhi Excise Policy 2021–22 has thrown up some prominent names who had changed their phones multiple times in the last year.
Apart from Delhi Deputy Chief minister Manish Sisodia, it has also come to light that K Kavitha, daughter of Telangana CM K Chandrasekhar Rao, and Bibhav Kumar, personal assistant to Delhi Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, had changed their phones multiple times.
Kavitha, according to ED, had changed her phone 10 times while Kumar had changed his phone four times in the past year.
The ED had earlier said that Sisodia changed at least 14 mobile phones in the last year, while another Aam Aadmi Party minister Kailash Gehlot, changed his phone three times.
Even, Kumar changed his mobile phone four times in the last year, the ED said.
“K Kavitha, who is an MLC in Telangana, changed her mobile phone 10 times,” the ED said. However, K Kavitha, a Bharath Rashtra Samithi leader, has not been named in the ED’s charge sheet in connection with the case.
The ED filed a charge sheet against five persons – Sameer Mahendru, MD of Indospirits, Khao Gali Restaurants Pvt Ltd, Indospiritis, Bubbly Beverages Pvt Ltd, Indospirits Distribution Limited before a Delhi court. The court took cognizance of the ED charge sheet on Tuesday.
In its charge sheet, the ED pointed out how attempts were made to “destroy the evidence”.
“An attempt was also made to see that the evidence pertaining to the commission of this scam, running into thousands of crores, was destroyed,” ED said.
“It is pertinent to note that major evidence with respect to the subject of the liquor scam was stored in digital formats, both on mobile phones and laptops. However, as soon as the scam was unearthed and the case surfaced/handed over to the investigating agency, a large number of digital devices were found to have been destroyed/changed by the persons involved/suspected to be involved in this case,” the ED added.
The New Indian had earlier reported that at least 36 accused individuals had changed about 130 phones worth ₹1.4 crore. In its charge sheet, the ED said, “At least, 36 accused or suspected persons involved in the Excise Scam have destroyed or used 170 phones.”
The financial probe agency said that it had been able to recover 17 out of 170 phones, “otherwise the kickbacks could have been much more and the involvement of other important persons would have surfaced more clearly”.
“However, data was found to be deleted or formatted in these phones as well. It is against this background and hardship that the ED had to investigate. Despite this, the material shown in this PC has been unearthed by the ED through the arduous process of extraction and examination of numerous devices,” the agency said.
“Further, most of the accused or suspects have also changed their phone from May 2022 to August 2022, which indicates that the evidence available in their phones prior to the said period (including the period of policy formulation and implementation) is destroyed/not retrievable,” the ED alleged.
The agency said that the magnitude of the destruction is such that most of the accused, including liquor barons, senior government officials, the Excise Minister of Delhi, and other suspects have changed their phones multiple times, and the approximate value of the devices used and destroyed comes to a whopping sum of ₹1.38 crore, as per open source information w.r.t. the make and model of the devices as per IMEI numbers found in CDR.
