Hyderabad: The Andhra Pradesh government has ordered the state’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to probe into suspected links between the accused in alleged payment of ₹118 crore kickbacks to Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief N Chandrababu Naidu and the ₹371 crore skill development corporation scam, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
The probe agency has already issued notices to two individuals accused in the two cases for questioning, a senior official in the chief minister’s office (CMO) said. “CID additional director general N Sanjay is likely to disclose details of the preliminary investigation on Thursday,” the official said, requesting anonymity.
On August 4, the Income Tax department issued a show-cause notice to Naidu, the former Andhra Pradesh chief minister, asking why an amount of ₹118 crore, allegedly received by him as kickbacks from some infrastructure companies, should not be treated as “undisclosed income” and be processed as per law.
The notice, reviewed and reported by HT last week, said the payment of kickbacks was revealed during the searches carried out at the premises of Manoj Vasudev Pardasany [referred to as MVP in the notice] in November 2019. MVP had taken part in the tendering process in Andhra Pradesh since December 2017 on behalf of Shapoorji Pallonji & Co. Pvt Ltd (SPCL), it added.
In his statements, Pardasany admitted to having arranged bogus contacts and work orders for siphoning off of funds by SPCL to generate cash through sham sub-contractor companies, the notice added.
{{/usCountry}}In his statements, Pardasany admitted to having arranged bogus contacts and work orders for siphoning off of funds by SPCL to generate cash through sham sub-contractor companies, the notice added.
{{/usCountry}}The senior official in the CMO, requesting anonymity, said the state government suspects there is a “strong connection” between MVP and Yogesh Gupta, a prime accused in the Andhra Pradesh Skill Development Corporation (APSSDC) scam.
In March this year, the CID initiated a probe into an alleged scam worth ₹371 crore in the APSSDC during the previous TDP regime. Earlier, a CMO release had alleged that the previous TDP government signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with a consortium involving Siemens Industry Software India Ltd and Design Tech Systems Pvt Ltd for executing the project worth ₹3,300 crore.
As part of the MoU, Siemens Industry was supposed to set up six centres of excellence for skill development at an estimated cost of ₹3,300 crore with the state government paying around 10% of the project cost. The rest of the amount was to be borne by Siemens and Design Tech as grant-in-aid. Subsequently, the state government granted a work order for ₹371 crore to the private firm to set up the centres of excellence.
The CID probe, however, revealed that Siemens Industry Software India and Design Tech had not spent a single rupee on the project, but siphoned off a major portion of ₹371 crore contributed by the government and diverted it to shell companies, the CMO release citing CID probe had said in March.
After the report of the I-T department notices to Naidu came to the fore, the YS Jagan Mohan Reddy-led government suspected that the alleged payment of ₹118 crore as revealed by MVP had links with the APSSDC scam.
The senior CMO official quoted above said Yogesh Gupta was suspected of playing a significant role in rerouting a substantial part of ₹371 crore in five phases over a three-month period.
“The case has been entrusted to the CID, which issued notices to MVP and Yogesh Gupta. Both the individuals will be subjected to a thorough inquiry,” the official said. He, however, did not divulge the details of when the case was entrusted to the CID and the notices served to the accused.
“The primary objective is to uncover any potential associations between the individuals involved in these scandals, which could provide insight into the extent of corruption,” the senior official added.
While TDP leaders have maintained a silence on both I-T notices and the CID probe, Naidu on Wednesday said he might get arrested in a day or two.
“They (the state government) may arrest me tomorrow or the day after. Otherwise, they will conduct raids on my house. But I am not scared. I have not made any mistake,” the TDP chief said at a meeting in Rayadurgam in Anantapur district on Wednesday, without referring to any of the cases against him.