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BENGALURU: The special court to try cases against sitting and former MPs/MLAs has taken cognizance of a prosecution complaint filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the alleged scam in Karnataka Maharshi Valmiki Scheduled Tribes Development Corporation Ltd.
B Nagendra, Congress MLA and former minister for Scheduled Tribes Welfare, has been named as the prime accused and mastermind behind the scam.
He allegedly orchestrated the scam with the help of 24 others, including his associates Satyanarayana Varma, Etakari Satyanarayana, JG Padmanabha, Nageshwar Rao, Nekkenti Nagaraj and Vijay Kumar Gowda.
The ED launched its investigation on the basis of the FIRs registered by Karnataka police and CBI, which found that around Rs 89.62 crore was diverted from the bank accounts of the corporation to the fake accounts in some banks in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and later laundered the money through shell entities. This scam came to light after Chandrashekhar, an employee of the corporation, died by suicide in May 2024, according to a press release from the ED.
‘Rs 20cr diverted money used to meet poll expenses’
The ED probe revealed that based on Nagendra’s direction, the bank account of the corporation was shifted to the MG Road branch without proper authorisation, where Rs 187 cr, including Rs 43.33 cr from the Treasury under the Ganga Kalyana Scheme, was deposited in violation of government norms. This money was subsequently siphoned off through multiple shell accounts and converted into cash and bullion, the release said.
The probe also revealed that Rs 20.19 cr of the diverted money was used to meet the expenses of a candidate, who contested the 2024 LS polls from Bellary. Part of this money was used by Nagendra. Evidence related to these expenditures was discovered during search and seizure operations. Details of the election expenses were retrieved from the mobile phone of Vijay Kumar Gowda, who handled the cash on Nagendra’s instructions.