VIJAYAWADA: Mangalgiri MLA Alla Rama Krishna Reddy on Friday alleged that former IAS officer D Sambasiva Rao was the mastermind behind the illegal sale of the assigned lands belonging to SCs in the Amaravati region. Presenting a video of land deals between a real estate dealer, Kommareddy Brahmananda Reddy from Mangalagiri, and the owners of the assigned lands, the MLA sought to know how the assigned lands were sold violating the provisions of the Andhra Pradesh Assigned Lands (Prohibition of Transfers) Act 1977.
Stating that he is handing the video evidence over to the CID, he demanded that the agency arrest Brahmananda Reddy and investigate the role of Sambasiva Rao, former Joint collector of Guntur Ch Sreedhar, former collectors of Guntur Kathilal Dhande and Kona Sasidhar, RDO and MROs of the region at that time. He accused the aforementioned IAS officers of tampering with records to favour the then chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu and his benamis. After presenting his nine-minute video, the MLA said Kommareddy Brahmanananda Reddy of Bhumiputra Real Estate based in Mangalagiri could only make such deals without fear of law, with the backing of the then chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu, then ministers P Pulla Rao and P Narayana and local TDP leaders.
“It is clear from the video that TDP leaders have coerced SC families to give up the assigned lands and sign bonds, stating that they are relinquishing all rights on the land and any deals between the new owners and the government will have nothing to do with them. Further, they were made to sign wherever they are asked to with regard to the lands. It was sheer threatening,” the MLA argued. Moreover, for those land deals that happened before, a package for the assigned lands was announced, which clearly shows Naidu was not in favour of having SCs anywhere in Amaravati, once it was announced as capital and also did not want them to get any benefit, the MLA alleged.
“Senior IAS officer D Sambasiva Rao, now retired, was shifted to Amaravati by Naidu from the TTD with an ulterior motive to have the lands in the region secured to himself, his benamis and other TDP leaders. That IAS officer made Guntur district collectorate as his camp office and made plans for the benefit of Naidu and his coterie,” the MLA alleged. Pointing out that the RSR and Adangal records of the lands, which are normally available with MRO offices, are not available in Thullur mandal today, Ramakrishna Reddy said those records were illegally shifted to the district collectorate.
“If any record was to be shifted from any office, due process of movement register is followed. However, in this case, it is missing. Those records were segregated into government lands, assigned lands, shivai zamindar lands, Kunta, Donka porabmoks and private lands. Accordingly, plans were made to usurp those lands to benefit Naidu and his coterie. Existing records have been tampered with and false records were created with help of the then district collectors Kantilal Dande, Koneru Sasidhar and joint collector Ch Sreedhar and other low-level officials. Those IAS officers either feared transfer or were lured by easy money, but they did injustice to the SC owners of assigned lands,” the MLA alleged.
Ramakrishna wondered as to how those two officers, who too are from the SC community, could do injustice to their fellow community members. He asserted that GO 41 was clearly violated on several occasions. He urged Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy to restore those lands to the real owners, who have been cultivating those lands since 1940 and have pattas issued to them at that time. He said he would continue to dig deep and bring out evidence while admitting that retired IAS officer Sambasiva Rao has not signed any documents on his own. However, he said that the officer was the mastermind behind the assigned lands scam.