VIJAYAWADA: Continuing his arguments in the final hearing of the cases against former Municipal Administration minister P Narayana and former Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu with regard to the illegal purchase and sale of assigned lands in Amaravati region taking undue advantage of being in the power, Additional Advocate General (AAG) Ponnavolu Sudhakar Reddy on Wednesday stressed that Narayana, who took away assigned lands from the poor beneficiaries for a throwaway price, also threatened officials stating it was their government and what they said was law.
Appearing for the CID in the case, Sudhakar Reddy said the advice and suggestions of the then AG, law department, secretaries and IAS officers were ignored by Narayana. “In the entire case, he was the key player. He used his relatives and benamis to get 148 acres of assigned lands for just Rs 18.10 crore, while the market price of those lands at that time was Rs 600 crore,” he argued.
He said then ruling party members had threatened and instilled fear among the beneficiaries of assigned lands in Amaravati, stating that those lands would be taken back by the government and cajoled them in parting their lands for throwaway prices. The lands thus brought were in turn given to the government under the land pooling scheme for valuable residential and commercial plots, which were sold to others for higher prices, he contended.
Sudhakar said such transactions had caused loss to the exchequer, while Narayana and co had gained a lot. Stating that there is concrete evidence with regard to the role of Narayana in the case, he said the CID had seized the mobile phone of Narayana, in which the telephonic conversation between him and his daughter Sindhura got recorded. He handed over the pen drive of the entire conversation between Narayana and his daughter and the original records of the entire case in a sealed cover to the court.