BENGALURU: A P Pramod, the orderly of suspended Lokayukta PRO Syed Riyaz, has disclosed that he had received Rs 1 lakh from Revenue Minister Srinivasa Prasad’s Personal Secretary Nagaraj on two occasions and handed it over to Riyaz.
This was revealed in the chargesheet filed by SIT before the Lokayukta Special Court. In his statement, Pramod stated that Riyaz even spoke to Nagaraj from his mobile phone. The mobile phone of another orderly, Assistant Head Constable Anthony Raju, was also used for this purpose. Nagaraj used to meet Riyaz frequently at his chamber.
Riyaz and Ashwin used to talk in the conference hall attached to the PRO’s chamber and would also invite the other accused Bhaskar, Rajashekar and Hotte Krishna there, Pramod said.
“All these people summoned many officials to the conference hall and held talks with them. About half-a-dozen times, I found them in the conference hall in 2014. From 2015 onwards, Ashok Kumar started to meet PRO Riyaz. Then he also started to summon officials to the same place,” Pramod said.
After Riyaz returned from Mecca-Madina on July 19, Lokayukta Justice Y Bhaskar Rao asked him to extend his leave. His brother Illias was informed of this. Riyaz would get updates on the situation from Mecca over the phone.
Riyaz even asked him to cut the copies of reports appearing in newspapers on the scam and send him scanned copies.
Enter Ashwin
Pramod stated that Ashwin started coming to the Lokayukta office in 2014, a year after his father Bhaskar Rao was appointed as Lokayukta. In fact, Riyaz himself introduced V Bhaskar, Rajashekar, Hotte Krishna and Ashok Kumar to Ashwin.
“Riyaz sent Kadam to receive Ashwin from the airport and booked both air and train tickets for him. The tickets were sent to his residence in Hyderabad by courier. Riyaz would use my mobile phone to talk to Ashwin and even V Bhaskar and Hotte Krishna. Ashok used to call my number to speak to Riyaz,” Pramod said.
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