VIJAYAWADA: The Special ACB court on Tuesday heard the custody petition filed by the AP CID in the Andhra Pradesh State Skill Development Corporation (APSSDC) scam, in which Rs 241 crore meant for setting up skill development centres for unemployed youth was allegedly siphoned off. The court will pronounce its order on Wednesday.
In its plea, the CID sought custody of Dr. K Lakshminarayana (A2), former director of APSSDC; Shirish Chandrakant Shah of Allied Computers International (A5); Soumadryi Sekhar Bose (A6), former managing director of SIEMENS Industry Software (India) Pvt Ltd; Vikas Vinayak Khanvelkar (A8), chairman and MD of DesignTech Systems Pvt Ltd and Mukul Agarwal, chief operating officer of Skiller Enterprises India Pvt Ltd (A10).
So far, the CID arrested Ghanta Subba Rao (A1), Soumyadri Sekhar Bose (A6), Vikas Vinayak Khanvelkar (A8), Shirish Chandrakant Shah (A5) and Mukul Agarwal (A10) and produced them before the ACB Special Court magistrate, who sent them to judicial remand till December 24.
According to CID officials, the prime accused Ghanta and Subbarao Soumyadri Shekhar Bose, A6, played a vital role in the alleged irregularities. Bose made correspondence with the state government and managed to release Rs 371 crore in favour of DesignTech towards government share in advance without executing any work by the technology partners. He along with Shah diverted the money to shell companies by raising fake invoices.
The CID told the ACB special court magistrate that Ghanta Subbarao and other accused named in the FIR conspired with officials of SIEMENS Industry Software (India) Pvt Ltd and floated shell companies to misuse the funds allotted by the State government.
The CID arrested five persons so far and served notices on several persons including a former Finance principal secretary PV Ramesh and L Premachandra Reddy, retired IAS officer and advisor to the Jagan government on state reorganisation act matters.