HYDERABAD: The Special Enforcement Directorate (ED) court at Hyderabad on Monday decided to hear the cases filed by the ED, irrespective of the CBI cases, in the disproportionate assets case against Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy. The court also accepted Jagan’s plea to be exempted from personally appearing for the hearing due to urgent official programmes.
In November last year, following the Telangana High Court’s (HC) direction, the Nampally court had transferred the ED case to the Special CBI court, which is also designated to hear the ED cases under the Prevention of Money laundering Act (PMLA), 2002. When the matter came up for hearing recently, the Special court summoned Jagan, his party MP Vijayasai Reddy and the directors of pharma companies Hetero, Aurobindo and Trident Life Sciences Limited and to appear before it on January 11.
On Monday, Jagan’s counsel filed an application before the court seeking exemption from personal appearance in the case due to some urgent official programmes. The other accused in the case — Vijayasai Reddy, Nityananda Reddy, Ramprasad Reddy and Sharat Chandra Reddy — appeared before the court.
The ED has registered the case based on the CBI’s quid pro quo case. In the CBI case, the pharma companies are charged with bribing the companies owned by Jagan in place of the land allotments they received through the AP government headed by Jagan’s father and the then CM late YS Rajasekhara Reddy between 2004 and 2009.
The CBI had alleged that these pharma companies had entered into a criminal conspiracy with the prime accused to get about 150 acres of land at Jadcherla special economic zone (SEZ) in Telangana in place of the Rs 29 crore investment they made in Jagathi publications, Janani Infra and other companies belonging to Jagan. On the other hand, the counsels appearing for Jagan denied these charges. During the hearing on Monday, Jagan’s counsel urged the court to hear the ED cases only after completion of the hearing of the CBI cases. However, the Special court decided to first hear the ED cases and posted the matter to January 21 for further hearing.