The Andhra Pradesh Crime Investigation Department (CID) on Monday, September 11, filed a Prisoner in Transit (PT) petition in the Vijayawada ACB Court seeking custody of former Chief Minister and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) supremo N Chandrababu Naidu in the Amaravati Inner Ring Road case. The TDP leader is already in judicial custody after the CID arrested him on September 9 in an alleged skill development scam.
In May 2022, the CID had registered an FIR against Chandrababu Naidu, former Minister for Municipal Administration and Urban Development Ponguru Narayana and others, for alleged irregularities in the construction of an internal ring road in Amaravati. The CID alleged that the alignment of the Inner Ring Road was manipulated to provide undue benefit to the Narayana Group of Institutions (headed by Narayana), Heritage Foods (founded by Naidu) and a few other private firms, at a cost to the public exchequer. The FIR was filed based on a complaint from YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) Mangalagiri MLA, Alla Rama Krishna Reddy.
It was alleged that certain illegal and corrupt activities were committed by highly placed government officials between 2014 and 2019 with regard to the design of master plan for the Andhra Pradesh capital and alignment of the ring road to cause wrongful gain to certain individuals. The other accused in the case include Lingamaneni Ramesh and Lingamaneni Venkata Surya Rajasekhar of Lingamaneni Group of Companies, KPV Anjani Kumar of RK Housing Ltd, TDP general secretary and Naidu’s son Nara Lokesh, and their family-owned Heritage Foods among others.
CID alleged that the agency selected as the master planner of Amaravati was guided by the Planning Division of APCRDA (Andhra Pradesh Capital Region Development Authority), and as Chairman and Vice-Chairman of APCRDA, Naidu and Narayana made sure that the Inner Ring Road was designed in such a manner that arrangement to design the Inner Ring Road in such a manner that it passed just adjacent to the properties of the accused. It also alleged that the accused abused their official position and entrusted the designing of the IRR, capital city area and seed capital area to the companies which worked as per their directives.
As an example, CID alleged that Narayana instructed to change the alignment of the existing 100 feet road between Tadigadapa and Enikepadu to an area between Penamaluru and Done Atkuru villages, thereby by avoiding acquisition of land from the Narayana College campus beside the 100 feet road near Tadigadapa while bringing the IRR close to the Narayana college campuses on the route. It also alleged that Narayana’s associates had invested money in Rama Krishna Housing Limited Project near Kaza, and the alignment of the IRR was brought as close to it as possible.
CID also alleged certain quid pro quo arrangements between Naidu, Lokesh and realtors of the Lingamaneni Group, and that the house in which Naidu resides in Amaravati was an illegal quid pro quo gratification received from Lingamaneni Ramesh.
While Naidu, Narayana, and the Lingamaneni and their companies stood to gain from manipulating the IRR design, “many farmers whose land got notified under the manipulated alignment of the IRR suffered a wrongful loss, owing to the depreciation in the value of the land, not getting permissions to take up any constructions, banks not willing to provide loans, etc.,” CID alleged.
When the master planner gave three options for the location of the seed capital area of 1691 acres, Naidu and Narayana picked a location so that the seed capital was just adjacent to about 58 acres of land belonging to benamis of Narayana, CID alleged.
The state's ruling party has also accused Naidu of large scale irregularities in land acquisition and other aspects in development of the state capital Amavati.
The CID has also sought five-day custody of the former Chief Minister in the skill development case. Both the petitions are likely to come up for hearing on Tuesday.
The ACB Court had Sunday sent Naidu to judicial custody for 14 days and he was subsequently shifted to Rajahmundry Central Jail. Also on Monday, the court is also likely to take up for hearing a petition moved by Naidu’s lawyers for house custody. Since Naidu is a Z plus category protectee, a petition has been filed to allow house custody.