VIJAYAWADA: The Andhra Pradesh High Court on Monday granted conditional bail to retired IAS officer and former CEO of AP State Skill Development Corporation Ganta Subba Rao (In pic). He was directed to pay two sureties of Rs 2 lakh each.
Subba Rao, the main accused in the alleged Rs 241 crore Skill Development Corporation scam, was directed to be available to the CID for questioning. He was asked to appear before CID officials every Saturday from 10 am to 1 pm. The court also directed the CID to issue notice to Rao a day before questioning him.
Justice D Ramesh questioned the CID why the then APSSDC officials, who signed the agreement with Siemens-Design Tech, were not questioned. The judge also sought to know why a preliminary investigation was not carried out regarding their role in the scam.
Directing the investigation officer to submit a detailed affidavit, the court adjourned the case hearing to January 3. CID counsel TMK Chaitanya said preliminary investigation was conducted for two months and it was found that project proposals and agreements between the corporation and Siemens-Design Tech were drafted by Rao.
CID expedites probe
Expediting its investigation into the APSSDC scam, AP Crime Investigation Department (APCID) sleuths tried to serve notices on retired IAS officer PV Ramesh at his residence in Hyderabad,Telangana, on Monday.
The investigating officials have reportedly prepared a questionnaire pertaining to the scam and payments to the tune of Rs 371 crore made to the shell companies way back in 2015 and 2016. However, the CID sleuths were forced to leave the house without serving the notices on Ramesh as he was not there.
Later, CID officials came to know that Ramesh recently shifted to another house as the present house was reportedly given to a contractor for renovation.
“We prepared a questionnaire seeking clarification on the financial transactions during his tenure pertaining to the Skill Development Corporation, SIEMENS and other shell companies identified in the investigation. Since he served as principal secretary in the Finance department, he might have knowledge about financial transactions between government and companies right from the inception of the APSSDC. We are going to send the questionnaire to Ramesh via speed post,” said a senior official, on the condition of anonymity.
The CID is also going to file a custody petition of Shirish Chandrakant Shah (50) with the ACB special court on Tuesday. He was arrested from Mumbai last Wednesday for his alleged involvement in setting up shell companies. The CID officials produced Shah before the ACB court which remanded him to judicial custody till December 24.