VIJAYAWADA: The Andhra Pradesh High Court on Tuesday allowed the Enforcement Directorate to issue orders for freezing bank accounts belonging to benamis of TDP leader JC Prabhakar Reddy, who is facing allegations of amassing crores of rupees by selling BS III vehicles that were bought from Ashok Leyland as scrap as BS IV vehicles.
Hearing a petition filed by Prabhakar Reddy’s benami Chavva Gopal Reddy, his wife and son challenging the e-mails sent by the assistant director of ED to banks asking them to freeze their accounts, Justice Ravi Nath Tilhari said as per Section 17 of the Money Laundering Act, the ED can freeze the bank accounts.
The orders will be in force for 15 days. However, the court said as the orders to freeze the accounts were not issued as per Section 17 of the Act, e-mails sent previously by the ED assistant director asking the banks to freeze the accounts of the trio stand cancelled. Now, the ED can issue orders as per the Act, he said. The ED found that crores of Rupees involved in the money laundering case was stashed in the bank accounts belonging to Gopal Reddy, managing partner of Gopal Reddy and Co, his wife Lakshmi Devi and son Vishnuvardhan Reddy.