The state government has landed in a tricky situation with the CBI naming revenue minister Dharm-ana Prasada Rao as accused in the Jagan illegal investments case. The CBI filed one more chargesheet in Jagan’s case on Monday, this time exclusively focusing on the controversial Vanpic project and included the minister as one of the accused.
It also made two senior bureaucrats Manmohan Singh and M. Samuel as accused seven and eight respectively while Mr Prasada Rao was A5. “The CBI’s move has sti-rred the otherwise calm waters. It came at a time when an impression was increasingly gaining ground that there would be no more arrests after Mr Jagan Mohan Reddy was put behind bars,” a senior minister said.
Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy also recently gave a clean chit to the ministers figured in the Jagan case apparently in a bid to defend the government’s decision to extend legal assistance to them for fighting a case in the Supreme Court. The CM clarified that the ministers had only implemented the Cabinet’s decisions and ruled out quid pro quo charges against them.
Significantly, the government took the CBI chargesheets and arrests as a yardstick for extending the legal aid. The government, while extending aid to ministers and bureaucrats, exempted former minister M. Venkataramana and IAS official Y. Srilakshmi as they were already arrested. “It is a tricky situation because the SC is yet to take up the hearing and in the meantime the CBI has listed the minister and two officers as accused,” sources said.
Sources said the allegations against the minister and Mr Samuel, the then revenue principal secretary, pertained to issue of GOs extending incentives. “These exemptions are part of industrial policy and have been given to industries in the past as well as after the CBI began its probe in the Jagan case,” an official said.