Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Jaganmohan Reddy will appear before a special court on Monday (file)
Hyderabad:
Andhra Pradesh’s Chief Minister Jaganmohan Reddy was instructed to appear before a special court of the Directorate of Enforcement in Hyderabad on Monday, in connection with alleged irregularities in the award of land to pharmaceutical companies when his father, the late YS Rajasekhara Reddy , he was chief minister.
Vijay Sai Reddy, a Rajya Sabha MP from the ruling YSR Congress, and the heads of the pharmaceutical companies: 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 special court is investigating allegations of disproportionate income and “quid pro quo” investments: that between 2004 and 2009 (when YS Rajasekhara Reddy was in power) companies invested in companies linked to Jagan Reddy in exchange for land in a special economic zone Economic zone).
The Chief Minister was ordered to appear in Hyderabad court after the case was transferred from a local court in Nampally, where the central agency filed a charge sheet in 2016. The case was transferred because it involved alleged offenses under the Law of Money laundering.
The same court will also hear the accusations presented by the CBI, on whose investigation the case of the Directorate of Enforcement is based. The CBI had presented 11 charge sheets and the Enforcement Directorate six.
In January last year, Jaganmohan Reddy appeared before the Nampally court to face the ongoing trial. The judge rejected an exemption petition and ordered Mr. Reddy to appear in person.
That was the Chief Minister’s first court appearance since he was sworn in on May 30, 2019. He had not appeared for several months prior because he was busy campaigning for the general election.
He had requested the exemption due to his busy schedule as Chief Minister.
However, the then CBI lawyer argued that failure to appear would give him “freedom to do what he wants and influence the witnesses behind the iron wall of politics, money and muscle power.”
Several former ministers are also charged in the case.
Jagan Mohan Reddy is currently on bail, having spent time in jail as an “unconvicted criminal inmate” at Chanchalguda Central Prison from May 2012 to September 2013.
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