ACB opposes plea for discharge of top bureaucrats from Raheja case

Hyderabad: The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) of Telangana state government has strongly opposed the pleas of former top bureaucrats to the High Court at Hyderabad for discharging them from the case relating to irregularities to Raheja-Mindspace-APIIC joint at Madhapur in Hyderabad. It also appealed to the court to allow it to prosecute these officials.

ACB special counsel V Ravi Kiran Rao made these submissions before Justice B Siva Sankara Rao, who was hearing pleas by accused IAS officials L V Subrahmanyam, B P Acharya, both from APIIC because they functioned as MDs of this corporation, K Ratna Prabha, M Gopi Krishna and P S Murthy from Information Technology and Communications Department and Raheja of Raheja Corporation who were all urging the court to quash the proceedings before the ACB Court as they were unlawful.

The Rahejas were given 109 acres of prime land at Madapur in the Hitech City for a mere Rs 50 lakh per acre by the then State government and APIIC. The Rahejas made L V Subrahmanyam to preside over a meeting of APIIC-Raheja joint venture company on December 3, 2004. The ACB Counsel informed the court that in the said meeting it was decided to raise the share capital of the JV company from Rs 1 crore to Rs 20 crore.

Since APIIC’s share is 11 per cent in the JV company, it was asked to contribute Rs 2.09 crore as its share of the increased share capital. But in a planned manner, the officials and the company allowed the APIIC stake to fall down to a mere 0.55 per cent from the 11 per cent in the JV company. Only after the registration of an FIR, the stake of APIIC was restored to 11 per cent, he informed saying it clearly established wrongdoing on their part. The court would hear this matter on Friday.