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The Andhra Pradesh government on Thursday accorded permission for the prosecution of senior IAS officer Y Sri Lakshmi in the ongoing CBI investigation into the alleged irregularities involving former Karnataka minister Gali Janardhan Reddy-owned Obulapuram Mining Company (OMC).
The officer was arrested by the investigative agency in November last year and had been kept in judicial custody after a brief bail since then. Though the CBI officials had approached the state government at that stage itself, the chief minister’s office, however, took more than six months to clear the file seeking her prosecution.
Interestingly, the government issued a press release this time stating that chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy has approved the file seeking the permission for prosecution of the lady officer, both under Criminal Procedure Code (Cr PC) and Prevention of Corruption Act. “The government has approved the prosecution in view of the serious charges against her,” the statement said.
Sri Lakshmi is the second IAS officer against whom the CBI has got the approval for prosecution. Recently, the government has granted the prosecution of BP Acharya, who was arrested by the investigative agency in January this year in a separate case of the alleged financial irregularities involving a public-private joint venture township project being developed by Emaar MGF.
While Sri Lakshmi is accused of violating rules in granting iron ore mining leases to OMC, Acharya has been named as the prime accused for having allegedly facilitating the unilateral dilution of the equity held by Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC), besides allowing the developer to sell the villa plots at a fraction of the market price when he was heading the APIIC.
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However, the government had refused to grant the prosecution of LV Subrahmanyam, another IAS officer and the accused in the same Emaar township project case under the Prevention of Corruption Act. The investigative agency is proceeding against Subrahmanyam under Cr PC.
The CBI is currently handling three separate cases, including the one on Kadapa MP YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, and has filed multiple charge sheets in all these cases in the designated CBI court in Hyderabad.
In addition to these officers, the Supreme Court had issued notices to another half-a-dozen bureaucrats in the Andhra Pradesh government besides six ministers calling for explanation of their role in the alleged quid-pro-quo deals benefiting the Kadapa MP. The state government has asked all the ministers and IAS officers to send replies to the above notices in their individual capacities.
