HYDERABAD: Continuing their searches in the Delhi excise policy scam case, ED teams raided the residence and offices of one Srinivasa Rao in the city on Monday. It may be recalled that Ramachandran Pillai, one of the accused in the case and owner of Robin Distilleries, and a charted accountant, Gorantla Bucchi Babu, were questioned by the ED sleuths and reportedly found incriminating documents and alleged transactions to the tune of Rs 2,000 crore linked to Srinivasa Rao during searches on Sunday.
Following fresh findings, the ED sleuths sifted through Srinivasa Rao’s companies and residence located in Banjara Hills, Madhapur and Uppal. The ED and CBI searched six locations linked to Ramachandran Pillai, Gorantla Bucchi Babu, Gandra Premsagar, one of the partners in Robin Distilleries, and Boinpally Abhishek, who is connected to Anoo’s, a beauty institution at Madhapur. These led the central agencies to link them to Srinivas Rao, who is said to be a builder from Karimnagar.
Srinivasa Rao allegedly acted as a middleman for Pillai and eight companies including Robin Distilleries. Alleged transactions worth Rs 2,000 crore from his account to Robin Distilleries and seven other firms were traced. In the fresh raid, the ED reportedly seized some incriminating material indicating links to Pillai’s firms.
The raids were reportedly carried out on the complaint of Praveen Kumar, Director, Ministry of Home Affairs, government of India, suspecting criminal conspiracy and falsification of accounts with the objective of gaining undue advantage in the Delhi excise policy. The CBI also has launched a probe into the complaint. Both the central agencies are digging deeper to get to the bottom of the scam and they are likely to conduct more raids in the coming days.