Hyderabad, June 8: There has been a new twist in the Jagan Mohan Reddy disproportionate assets case. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has summoned the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) chief and India Cements MD N Srinivasan in connection with the case.
Srinivasan has been summoned in his capacity as the Managing Director of India Cements Ltd. The CBI wants Srinivasan to explain his firm's investments in Jagan's companies. The CBI believes that India Cements got benefits in the form of enhanced water allocations under the YSR regime, enabling it to double its production.
The CBI, which is probing the corruption charges against Jagan questioned Andhra Pradesh Information Technology Minister Ponnala Lakshmaiah for over eight hours on Thursday.
After being summoned, the Minister appeared before the agency which questioned him regarding the Government Orders (GOs) issued during 2004-09 by the Irrigation Department, when he was the Major Irrigation Minister in the cabinet of late YS Rajasekhara Reddy, on supply of water to manufacturing plants of some cement firms. These firms allegedly made investments in Jagan's businesses.
Senior IAS officer Adityanath Das, who was the then Principal Secretary of Irrigation, was also quizzed with regard to the GOs, sources said.
Ponnala is among the six Andhra Pradesh Ministers who were issued notices by the Supreme Court in March seeking their stand on the allegations about their alleged roles in the corruption case against Jagan.
The central agency, which has so far arrested Jagan, his financial advisor V Vijay Sai Reddy (currently out on bail), former AP Minister Mopidevi Venkatramana Rao, industrialist Nimmagadda Prasad and senior bureaucrat KV Brahmananda Reddy, has also quizzed two other AP Ministers - Sabitha Indra Reddy and Dharmana Prasada Rao - over GOs that allegedly benefited some companies.
The CBI chargesheets allege that Jagan and his father had hatched a conspiracy to defraud the government, and the firms receiving government favours would invest in Jagan's companies as a quid pro quo.
The five-day custodial interrogation period of Jagan ended on Thursday, and the CBI took him back to Chanchalguda jail where he is under judicial custody till June 11.
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