VIJAYAWADA: The three-day custodial interrogation of Dr Pothineni Ramesh Babu, Managing Director of Dr Ramesh Cardiac Multispecialty Hospital, in the Swarna Palace hotel fire accident case, completed on Wednesday.
As per the directions of the Andhra Pradesh High Court, investigating officers interrogated Ramesh Babu from November 30 to December 2 from 10 am to 5 pm in the presence of his lawyer by taking all Covid-19 precautions.
According to sources in the police department, Ramesh Babu reportedly evaded most of the questions asked by the investigating officers during the interrogation and could not produce any documents pertaining to Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the hotel management and hospital to run Covid-19 Care Centre (CCC).
It is also learnt that the investigating officers also enquired him about the role of hotel MD Mutthavarapu Srinivasa Rao in obtaining No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the Fire Services department and occupancy certificate from the authorities concerned.
“A total of 60 questions pertaining to the fire accident, which claimed the lives of 10 persons, were posed to Ramesh Babu. But he reportedly failed to answer most of the questions, and produce any kind of agreements or documents,” the sources said. The police officials further said the report of custodial interrogation will be submitted to the High court.
“As the issue is in the purview of the Andhra Pradesh High Court, we cannot comment on the status of investigation. The report will be handed over to the court soon,” a police official said.