Anti-Corruption Bureau files booze charges against former excise minister

By S A Ishaqui

Hyderabad July 1: After the intervention of the High Court, sleuths of the Anti-Corruption Bureau finally filed a charge sheet against former excise minister Mopidevi Venkataramana, the brother of former PCC president Botsa Satyanarayana and the son of former minister Dharmana Prasad Rao.

The Anti-Corruption Bureaus of AP and Telangana submitted their action taken reports in the liquor syndicates scam on Monday. The ACB claimed that the allegation that former excise minister Mopidevi Venkataramana accepted `10 lakh as bribe was proved during the investigation.

Mr Ravi Kiran Rao, the special counsel for ACB, submitted before a division bench comprising Chief Justice Kalyan Jyoti Sengupta and Justice P.V. Sanjay Kumar that after the setting aside of the memo issued to bar the initiation of cases against public representatives, the ACB re-investigated the cases, and filed charge sheets against public representatives.

According to the report the AP wing of ACB filed charge sheets against Dharmana Ram Manohar Naidu, son of former minister Dharmana Prasad Rao, and P. Appa Rao, the personal assistant of Prasad Rao and C. Venkata Satyanarayana and Chinna Appalanaidu, a corporator of Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation at the Visakhapatnam ACB court. The sleuths of the AP wing of ACB submitted before court that the charges against MLA Velagapudi Ramakrishna was not proved in the probe and he was discharged from the case.

The AP wing also filed a charge sheet against Botsa Adinarayana alias Seshu in Visakhapatnam ACB court and a charge sheet in Kurnool against former MLA Y. Chenna Kesava Reddy. The sleuths of Telangana submitted that they have filed a charge sheet against former excise minister Mopidevi Venkata Ramana in Hyderabad ACB court. They said that allegations against MLAs B. Kavitha and Sandra Venkata Veeraiah were not proved in the investigations.

The ACB submitted that charges under the Prevention of Corruption Act were farmed against all the accused. Referring to another direction of the High Court that sanctions pending against public servants should be cleared within three months by the government, P. Venugopal, the advocate general of AP, submitted that as the state was bifurcated, three months is needed to proceed in the matter. The bench considered and granted adjournment accordingly.