The Andhra Pradesh High Court has dismissed former chief minister Chandrababu Naidu’s quash petition in the alleged skill development scam case. Naidu’s counsel had filed a petition seeking cancellation of his judicial remand, arguing that the Crime Investigation Department (CID)’s case was illegal and should be quashed. Naidu’s lawyers will now approach the Supreme Court to seek relief.
The verdict came hours after the Vijayawada Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) court extended Naidu’s judicial custody in the case for two more days till Sunday, September 24, as it was about to end on Friday. The former chief minister was arrested in the early hours of September 9. He has been lodged at the Rajahmundry Central Prison in judicial custody since September 11.
The YSRCP government has alleged that a multi-crore scam took place during the TDP rule in a project that aimed to establish several skill development centres across the state to make young people employable. The project involved an agreement between the Andhra Pradesh State Skill Development Corporation (APSSDC) and two private companies – Siemens Industry Software (India) Pvt Ltd and DesignTech Systems Pvt Ltd – and the state government had agreed to contribute 10% of the total project cost, which amounted to nearly Rs 371 crore (including taxes).
The YSRCP government and CID have alleged that the government, at Naidu’s behest, hastily paid Rs 371 crore in five tranches over the course of just three months. Previous investigations by the Enforcement Directorate and GST Intelligence had also found irregularities in the spending of the project funds by the companies, with the ED alleging that Rs 241 crore from the Rs 371 crore funds were syphoned off through shell companies. While the CID’s FIR in the case was registered back in 2021, Naidu was recently labelled the ‘chief architect’ of the scam and arrested from Nandyal. CID has alleged that Naidu, his family, and TDP were the end beneficiaries of the government funds syphoned off through various shell companies.
When the quash petition came up for hearing earlier on September 19, Harish Salve, who was representing Naidu in the High Court, argued that since the skill development centres under the project have come up, which meant the service has been rendered to the government. He said that subcontractors not delivering services was not something the state government needed to go into. Naidu and the TDP have also contended that 40 Siemens skill development centres have been set up as part of the project and handed over to APSSDC. However, the CID has claimed that the entire project was completed only using part of the government funds, with the partner companies syphoning off the remaining funds (Rs 241 crore) and not making any contribution of their own.