The state government on Tuesday agreed to provide legal assistance to seven bureaucrats to defend the controversial GOs, issued by them during the Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy regime, which have become the subject matter of a Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court.
The government had earlier approved similar assistance to five out of six ministers who had received Su-preme Court notices, except former minister Mopidevi Venkataramana who has been arrested by the CBI.
The government took the same stand in the case of bureaucrats and left out Y. Srilakshmi from the list of officials who would get assistance as she has already been arrested in the Obulapuram mining scam. B.P. Acharya, who was arrested in the Emaar scam case, also sought assistance from the government but no decision was taken on his application.
An advocate from Nellore had filed the SLP at the Supreme Court with a plea to issue notices to ministers and bureaucrats who had approved or issued GOs that had formed the base for the quid pro quo allegations against Kadapa MP Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy in the on-going CBI probe. The officers who were granted assistance were vigilance commissioner S.V. Prasad, chief commissioner of land administration M. Samuel, agriculture principal secretary C.V.S.K. Sarma, municipal administration principal secretary B. Sambob, former IT secretary K. Ratna Prabha, irrigation secretary Adityanath Das and housing principal secretary Dr Manmohan Singh.