The police in Hyderabad on Thursday said that it had registered cases against senior bureaucrats; both retired and in-service officers, for allegedly misusing public funds.
Besides P V Ramesh, who is presently serving as the Additional Chief Secretary in the Chief Minister's Office in Andhra Pradesh, the Saifabad police, which is investigating the case, booked cases against retired IAS officer C V S K Sarma and ex-Chief Secretary P K Mohanty.
The police acted on the directions of a court, which was hearing a petition which alleged that the senior officials misused public funds by issuing Government Orders (GOs) that paid for the legal counsels of Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy, in his disproportionate assets (DA) case.
AV Ramana, general secretary of Janata Dal (United), was the petitioner in the case.
According to media reports, the case dates back to 2014, when the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is probing the DA case, had booked several IAS officers. One of them was C V S K Sharma.
Sharma is reported to have then sought an amount of Rs 7.56 lakh from the state government to hire legal counsels to argue his case in court. This was sanctioned by Mohanty and cleared by P V Ramesh.
Police have now registered a case against Sharma, Mohanty and Ramesh under Sections 403 (Dishonest misappropriation of property), 406 (Criminal breach of trust), 409 (Criminal breach of trust by public servant), 417 and 420 (Cheating) and 120B (Criminal Conspiracy), besides other relevant sections of the IPC.
The allegations against Jagan relate to the period 2004-2009, when Jagan's father YS Rajasekhara Reddy was the Chief Minister. The CBI and Enforcement Directorate (ED) which are probing the cases, said that Jagan, in criminal conspiracy with others, received bribes from various persons /companies in the guise of investments in his group companies as 'quid pro quo' for undue favours granted to them by the then Andhra Pradesh government.
Jagan was arrested in May 2012 in the DA case when he was an MP. In 2013, the special CBI court had granted conditional bail to Jagan, after he spent 16 months in jail.
IANS inputs