Prabhakar Rao Fails To Appear Before Enforcement Directorate

P V Prabhakar Rao, son of former Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao today failed to appear before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for questioning in connection with the Rs 133 crore urea scam.

Prabhakar Rao has sent a medical certificate from Hyderabad citing diarrhoea as the reason for his not being able to appear before the directorate, ED sources said, adding that fresh summons will be issued to him next week.

Prabhakar Rao had cited his fathers indisposition as well as his own illness as reasons for not appearing before the ED twice earlier.

Armed with a Supreme Court order striking down Prabhakar Raos bail application and giving a free hand to the ED in its probe into the FERA violation in the scam, the agency had issued summons to him to appear at the headquarters yesterday.

 

The summons were routed through the Hyderabad ED office but it could not be served on him personally as he was not available, the sources said.

Prabhakar Rao has already been questioned by CBI on the basis of allegations made by Sambasiva Rao, the Indian agent of Turkish firm Karsan, which entered into a contract with the public sector National Fertilisers Limited (NFL) for the supply of two lakh tonnes of urea.

Those already arrested by ED in this case include Sanjeeva Rao, a relative of Narasimha Rao, for allegedly receiving a part of the kickback money of over four million dollars routed through unauthorised hawala channels from Dubai.

The ED had earlier arrested Prakash Chandra Yadav, son of former fertiliser minister Ram Lakhan Singh Yadav, Anand Mohan, son of Sambasiva Rao, a former aide of Narasimha Rao and his business partner, Malleshan Gaud.

Two top officials of Karsan are currently in custody of the Swedish police in Geneva on CBIs request.