The Andhra Pradesh High Court has quashed the corruption case against retired IPS officer AB Venkateswara Rao. The 1989 batch IPS officer is considered close to CM Chandrababu Naidu. He was suspended by the previous YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) government, alleging irregularities in procuring surveillance equipment from Israel during his tenure as intelligence chief.
The High Court on May 7, Wednesday, quashed the case filed by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) saying the accusations were “feeble and casual” without material basis, according to The Times of India.
Venkateswara Rao was the Additional Director General of Police, Intelligence, when former Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy came to power in 2019. He was suspended and charged with corruption in procuring security-related equipment like aerostat and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) worth around Rs 25 crore from an Israeli firm through his son’s company by violating rules, to benefit his son.
Justice N Harinath observed that the accusations against Venkateswara Rao were insufficient to warrant a trial, and dismissed both the FIR and the charge sheet filed in the Vijayawada ACB court, The New Indian Express reported.
Advocate B Adinarayana Rao reportedly argued that the procurement process was overseen by the then Director General of Police (DGP), and Venkateswara Rao had no role in it. He also mentioned that Venkateswara Rao’s son’s firm, Akasam Advanced Systems, was not operating in Andhra Pradesh or Telangana.
When the YSRCP formed the government in 2019, it announced a probe into the alleged purchase of Pegasus software by TDP. Venkateswara Rao, who was the intelligence chief under the previous TDP regime, held a press conference denying his involvement in procuring Pegasus spyware. He later faced a show-cause notice for speaking to the media about the Pegasus row without permission from the government.
Venkateswara Rao was later suspended by the YSRCP government over alleged corruption in security equipment procurement in 2020, the case which has now been quashed by the High Court. His suspension was revoked in May 2022, following an order from the Supreme Court .
But the state government had posted him as Commissioner of Printing and Stationery. Shortly, he was suspended again a few days later on the grounds that he could influence witnesses, since the investigation of criminal charges were pending against him. Venkateswara Rao challenged this suspension in the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), which revoked it in May 2024, days before his retirement.
While the state government moved the High Court challenging CAT's order, Venkateswara Rao was eventually reinstated in service on the day he was due for retirement, May 31, 2024.
Later in January 2025, the present Chandrababu Naidu government decided to regularise his suspension periods, recognising them as periods spent on duty so he receives full pay for that duration.
Venkateswara Rao belongs to the Kamma community, the same community that CM Naidu and TDP founder NT Rama Rao hail from. Following his retirement, Venkateswara Rao addressed a Sankranti event organised by a Kamma caste group in Vijayawada, where he claimed that industrialists and officers from the Kamma community were targeted and made to suffer under the previous YSRCP government.
