He is known to be a classmate of jailed Kadapa MP YS Jagan Mohan Reddy in Hyderabad Public School (HPS) and the meteoric rise of his jewellery business ever since YS Rajasekhara Reddy took over as the chief minister is still a talking point among the jewellers community in Hyderabad.
Sukesh Gupta, owner of leading Hyderabad-based jewellers Mussadilal Bhagwat Swaroop (MBS), has now come under the scanner of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
Gupta was summoned by the CBI on Tuesday in connection with the alleged illegal assets case of the jailed MP. The CBI is now investigating whether Jagan has a stake in the MBS group. Gupta has been asked to present himself before the agency on Wednesday too.
Simultaneously, Congress MLA from Kakinada and another confidante of Jagan, Dwarampudi Chandrasekhara Reddy faced intense grilling by the CBI Tuesday as did Sajjala Ramakrishna Reddy, the editorial director of Sakshi and V Vijay Sai Reddy.
Gupta who arrived at the CBI’s office in Koti Tuesday morning, was examined till afternoon. Sources said the officials sought replies from the young businessman with regard to the alleged hawala transactions involving Jagan’s companies. Gupta is understood to have denied any knowledge of hawala transactions.
In fact, in March 2010, the MBS group - which has about four showrooms in Hyderabad and one each in Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam - had come under the scanner of Income Tax department when a search was conducted and incriminating documents seized. Sources said that the scrutiny of the documents seized had left the I-T department perplexed.
“The company did roaring business for the last four years and it showed profit of less than Rs 5 lakh in 2009,” sources said, adding that Rs 1.5 crore worth of gold and diamond jewellery, which the company could not account for, had been seized during the raids.
Sources in the I-T department also said they had come across some material to indicate that some politician held a considerable stake in the group. It was based on this that the CBI summoned him.
Till about two years ago, Mussadilal jewellers was a single group but later, one of the four Gupta brothers Prakash Gupta (Sukesh Gupta’s father) separated and opened his own chain of stores naming it as MBS group.