Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) leader K. Kavitha got bail on Tuesday (August 27, 2024) after 5 months in the Delhi Excise Policy Scam case. She has been accused of money laundering and corruption. The court has granted her conditional bail in both the cases with a bond of Rs 10 lakh each. During the hearing, Additional Solicitor General SV Raju, on behalf of the Enforcement Directorate and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), opposed K. Kavitha’s bail plea. He raised the issue of Kavitha’s phone formatting in the court and said that she had tampered with the evidence.
ASG Raju said that K. Kavitha had spoken to other accused as well, but she had deleted all the records before being summoned by the ED. On this argument, the Supreme Court questioned him that the habit of deleting messages and chats is a normal thing, should anyone share their private things with anyone else?
The bench of Justice Bhushan Ramakrishna Gavai and Justice KV Vishwanathan was hearing the case. ASG Raju, while opposing the bail plea of K. Kavitha, raised the issue of her phone formatting. On this, Justice Vishwanathan said, ‘Phone is a private thing, should anyone share their details with anyone? People delete messages. I also have a habit of deleting group messages. I delete old messages of school and college groups. This should be seen as a normal habit. Any person present in the courtroom will do the same.’
ASG Raju further said that this was not normal formatting, but the entire data was formatted, it is possible that an attempt was made to erase the evidence. Justice Gavai got angry at this and asked, ‘You are arguing the opposite. Do you have any material that proves that K. Kavitha was involved in the crime?’
Justice Vishwanathan asked ASG Raju whether phone formatting can prove that K. Kavitha was involved in the crime. He asked if there is any data that shows that there was any incriminating evidence in the phone, to which ASG Raju replied that K. Kavitha had talked to other accused, which is revealed from the phone details of those accused. This also shows that K. Kavitha formatted the phone to hide something.
