Hyderabad:
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Jaganmohan Reddy has been directed to seem ahead of a unique Enforcement Directorate court in Hyderabad on Monday, in connection with alleged irregularities in land allotment to pharma firms when his father, late YS Rajasekhara Reddy, was Chief Minister.
Vijay Sai Reddy, a Rajya Sabha MP from the ruling YSR Congress, and the heads of the pharma firms – Srinivasa Reddy (Director of Hetero Drugs), Nithyananda Reddy (the Managing Director of Aurobindo) and Sarath Chandra Reddy (Director of Trident Life Sciences) – have also been summoned, as have former bureaucrats BP Acharya and PV Ramprasad Reddy.
The unique court is searching into allegations of disproportionate earnings and “quid pro quo” investments – that in between 2004 and 2009 (when YS Rajasekhara Reddy was in energy) the firms invested in businesses linked to Jagan Reddy in exchange for land in a SEZ (Special Economic Zone).
The Chief Minister was directed to seem ahead of the Hyderabad court just after the case was transferred from a nearby court in Nampally, exactly where the central agency filed a charge sheet in 2016. The case was transferred mainly because it involved alleged offences below the Money Laundering Act.
The exact same court will also hear charge sheets filed by the CBI, on whose probe the Enforcement Directorate case is primarily based. The CBI had filed 11 charge sheets and the Enforcement Directorate six.
In January final year Jaganmohan Reddy appeared ahead of the Nampally court to face the ongoing trial. The judge rejected an exemption plea and directed Mr Reddy to seem in individual.
That was the Chief Minister’s initial look in court given that he was sworn in on May 30, 2019. He had failed to seem for various months prior as he was busy campaigning for the basic election
He had sought exemption on grounds of his busy schedule as Chief Minister.
However, the then CBI counsel argued that non-look would give him “liberty to do whatever he wants and influence witnesses behind iron wall of politics, money and muscle power”.
Several former ministers are also accused in the case.
Jagan Mohan Reddy is at the moment out on bail, obtaining spent time in jail as an “un-convicted criminal prisoner” in the Chanchalguda Central Prison from May 2012 to September 2013.