Name KVP in Jagan case, court tells CBI

[1]

Hyderabad: The CBI special court on Tuesday took serious note of the CBI not naming Member of Parliament and close associate of YSR, K.V.P. Ramachandra Rao, as an accused in the illegal investments case of Kadapa MP Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, despite one of the witnesses stating that he was part and parcel of the alleged quid pro quo deals.
The court even asked the CBI if it has to invoke Section 319 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which gives the court the power to add any person as an accused in a case, if during trial it found compelling evidence of his involvement.
The court made these observations when dealing with the supplementary chargesheet filed in the Pharma case (CC8/2012 involving Aurobindo, Hetero and Trident Life Sciences), which forms part of the illegal investments case.
Justice Durga Prasad questioned why the investigating agency had not named the Rajya Sabha member as an accused de-spite one of the witnesses alleging that the MP was actively involved in rece-iving and transferring the money accumulated by Jagan Mohan Reddy through quid pro quo deals.
All deals finalised after KVP’s nod: Sureedu
Sources in the Central Bureau of Investigations said that E. Suryanarayana Reddy (Sureedu), the personal assistant of Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy, has alleged that when YSR was chief minister, all deals that involved sanctioning of huge public assets, particularly government land, mines, water allocations, etc., were done only after the industrialists concerned met MP K.V.P. Ramachandra Rao and finalised the “terms” with him.
After that,  Rao would take the parties to the chief minister for the actual inking of the deal.
Sources said that in his statement, Sureedu alleged that YSR would ask industrialists to meet Mr Rao first before meeting him.In its reply, the CBI said that while invoking Section 319 was entirely at the court’s discretion, it cannot include a person as an accused simply on the strength of the witness statement of a single person.
Since so far they have not got any documentary or oral evidence from any other witness against Rao, they have not listed him as an accused. “However, we are still looking into the matter and if we were to come across further evidence in this regard we will be moving the court to take appropriate action,” the CBI counsel said.
The court also questioned if investigation in the pharma case was completed.
The CBI replied that as of now the investigation was over with regard to allegations made in the main chargesheet and the subsequent two chargesheets, but supplementary chargesheets may be added if any new aspects came to light.
On using Sureedu as a witness in the Pharma case, the court wondered if the same witness was being used in the latest chargesheet filed too, to which the CBI replied in the affirmative.
Sureedu is also listed as a witness in the Emaar MGF case.Though they have not included him in the chargesheet, the CBI did question Rao for nine hours last month to try and ascertain the role he played in key decisions made during the YSR regime.