Follow TNM's WhatsApp channel for news updates and story links.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested former Andhra Pradesh minister from the YSR Congress Party, Karumuri Nageswara Rao, in connection with the alleged liquor transport scam on August 23. The case involves alleged irregularities in liquor transport contracts under the previous YSRCP government which allegedly caused a loss of Rs 195 crore to the state exchequer.
The case is related to the alleged liquor scam, in which the state’s liquor policy was allegedly misused to replace popular liquor brands with lesser known brands, in exchange for bribes amounting to Rs 3,200 crore.
ED officials reportedly took Nageswara Rao into custody from his residence in Kondapur, Hyderabad, and took him into custody for questioning. He was arrested after the Supreme Court denied him anticipatory bail in July.
The ED had initiated an investigation based on an FIR registered by the Crime Investigation Department (CID), Andhra Pradesh.
Earlier in June, the ED had also arrested Nageswara Rao’s son, Karumuri Sunil Kumar, in connection with the transport scam case linked to the liquor scam case, along with the main accused Raj Kessireddy.
Raj, the former IT advisor to then chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, is alleged to be the principal conspirator behind an alleged financial crime involving the manipulation of liquor transportation tenders floated by the government-owned Andhra Pradesh State Beverages Corporation Limited (APSBCL).
At the time of Sunil’s arrest, the public prosecutor told the court that as Sunil’s father Nageswara Rao was the minister for Civil Supplies in the previous YSRCP government, he had managed to secure liquor transport sub-contracts for his business associates.
The ED had alleged that Sunil and his associates derived unlawful gains from the contracts. The investigation reportedly revealed that the government had paid around Rs 35 per km for liquor transport, while the prevailing rate was only Rs 13 per km.
ED and CID have also alleged that the liquor transport tender conditions of APSBCL were deliberately modified and tailored in favour of selected entities which merely acted as fronts, while the actual operational and financial control remained with persons associated with Raj and his associates.
With an elaborate plan to receive bribes worth Rs 50 to 60 crore per month, Raj and others ensured that orders were regularly placed to liquor companies from which pre-fixed bribes were received, the CID had alleged.