HYDERABAD: The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) officials filed a preliminary chargesheet against TDP MLA A Revanth Reddy and three others before the Special ACB Court here on Tuesday.
The ACB, in its 25-page chargesheet, has cited 39 witnesses and several documents. Besides Revanth Reddy, it has also named Bishop Sebastian, Uday Simha and Mathaiah Jerusalam under relevant Sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act and Section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC, who are accused in the scam.
It may be recalled that the TRS nominated MLA Elvis Stephenson had lodged a complaint with the ACB in May this year alleging that he was offered Rs 5 crore by Revanth Reddy to vote in favour of TDP MLC nominee in the Telangana Legislative Council polls held in June.
Subsequently, a case was registered and on May 31 the ACB arrested Revanth Reddy, Sebastian and Uday Simha while they were allegedly offering Rs 50 lakh to Stephenson as advance payment. The accused moved the high court and were granted conditional bail. As for Mathaiah, he approached the high court seeking quashing of the proceedings registered against him in the case. The court granted stay of his arrest.
The ACB had collected clinching evidence in the form of audio and video recordings and recovered Rs 50 lakh from the accused. The related electronic devices which included audio and video clippings were submitted before the ACB Court where the latter sent them to the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) to determine their authenticity.
The FSL after verifying the transcripts submitted a report to the court. The FSL, however, is yet to analyse whether the voice in the audio tapes was that of AP chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu or not. Soon after the scam surfaced and some channels had aired the purported conversation between Naidu and Stephenson, a section of TDP leaders had alleged that the tapes were doctored.
According to sources, the ACB will file one more chargesheet against another TDP MLA Sandra Venkata Veeraiah and others soon. The investigation is in progress.