HYDERABAD: A division bench of the Hyderabad High Court on Tuesday granted three more weeks to the Telangana government and the BHEL for filing counter affidavits with regard to the alleged irregularities and cost escalation in purchase of pumps and motors for Palamuru Ranga Reddy Lift Irrigation Scheme (PRLIS) project. The bench of Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice M Ganga Rao was dealing with a PIL filed by Nagam Janardhan Reddy, former minister and BJP leader, seeking CBI probe into alleged fraud in manipulating the estimates of Electro-Mechanical equipment for the project.
Petitioner Nagam, appearing as party-in-person, told the court that about `2.426 crore loss occurred to the public exchequer due to fraudulently revising the value of the above equipment from `5,960 crore as estimated by the Engineering Staff College of India to `8,386 crore by the departmental committee. The cost escalation for all the 31 pumps and motors was about `2,426 crore, he pointed out and sought the court to order for CBI enquiry into the issue.