APIIC-Raheja project: court summons senior bureaucrats

The special ACB court here today issued summons to five government officers accused of causing a loss of Rs 500 crore to the state exchequer by reducing the government's stake in a joint venture with Raheja Corporation.
Advocate T Sriranga Rao, a city-based lawyer, has challenged before the court the clean chit given by the Anti-Corruption Bureau to these bureaucrats as well as the top officials of Raheja Corporation over "dilution" of APIIC stake in the Raheja Mindspace project here.
The court issued summons to the IAS officers K Ratna Prabha, B P Acharya and L V Subramanyam, IPS officer M Gopi Krishna and former joint secretary (IT&C department) B S Murthy besides Neil Raheja and B Rabindranath, top officials of Raheja Corporation. They are to appear before the court on February 12, 2016.

Advocate Rao had filed a private complaint in the court in 2011. He complained that as per the 2005 MoU between Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC) and Raheja Corporation, the two entities were to hold equity of 11 per cent and 89 per cent respectively.
But the government officials, in collusion with Raheja Group officials, reduced APIIC's stake to 0.55 per cent, he alleged.
The court then asked ACB to register an FIR against Ratna Prabha, B P Acharya, Gopi Krishna, B S Murthy, Neil Raheja and B Rabindranath.
According to Rao, after the FIR was registered in 2011, APIIC paid Rs 2.09 crore to Raheja Corporation which restored APIIC's 11 per cent stake in the project.

But ACB's final report last September gave clean chit to the accused and requested the court to close the case, which Rao has challenged.