VIJAYAWADA: The Enforcement Directorate, Hyderabad on Tuesday filed its Prosecution Complaint (PC) against former MLA and TDP leader JC Prabhakar Reddy and others in the BS-IV vehicle scam. The PC was filed against a total of 17 people and entities before the Special Court for PMLA cases at Visakhapatnam under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002.
According to the ED, the Supreme Court had in March, 2017 ordered that vehicles that are not compliant with BS-IV emission norms shall not be sold or registered in India from April 1, 2017 onwards.
The ED said JC Prabhakar Reddy, who runs a travel company, C Gopal Reddy and others purchased BS-III vehicles from Ashok Leyland Limited as scrap at a huge discounted rate in the name of their entities—M/s Jatadhara Industries Private Limited and M/s C Gopal Reddy and Co—and fraudulently registered them as BS-IV vehicles with the help of forged and fabricated documents. “Majority of the fraudulent registrations were done in Nagaland while some were also done in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh,” the ED said.
The Andhra Pradesh police investigated the case based on a complaint by the transport department and found a money laundering aspect and wrote to the central agency which began the investigation.
“The investigation revealed that 50 such vehicles were registered in the name of M/s Jatadhara Industries Pvt Ltd and 104 vehicles were registered in the name of M/s C Gopal Reddy and Co. Most of these vehicles were further utilised by them in their transport business by plying them as BS-IV vehicles. Some such vehicles were also sold off by projecting them as BS IV vehicles,” the ED said adding the proceeds of crime generated by owning, plying and selling these vehicles have been quantified as Rs 38.36 crore.
The ED had earlier attached movable properties and immovable properties worth Rs 28.62 crore belonging to Prabhakar Reddy, Gopal Reddy and their family members. Investigation is under progress.