PLEA ON BABUS FUNDED BY AP IN JAGAN CASE

The Hyderabad High Court on Monday referred a petition to the registry for placing before an appropriate bench as it had elements of the public interest.

City resident A.V. Ramana had moved the petition challenging the income-tax department for not acting against six IAS officials of the AP cadre who allegedly failed to follow procedure while utilising public funds as legal fee for defending themselves in CBI cases.

The petitioner alleged that the erstwhile AP government had released to `7.5 lakh each to Mr S.V. Prasad, Ms K. Ratna Prabha, Mr Manmohan Singh, Mr Adityanath Das, Mr B. Sam Bob and M. Samuel through GO Rt No 719 on February 19, 2014, to meet their legal expenses. They had been listed as accused in the illegal investments case of YSRC president Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy.

The petitioner alleged that the officers failed to submit the advance stamp receipts of the payments made to the advocates who had been engaged to defend their cases from the trial court to the Supreme Court.

Mr P. Venugopal, counsel for the petitioner. told a division bench comprising Justice V. Ramasubramanian and Justice J. Uma Devi that though it was brought to the notice of the income-tax department, the officials had not taken action.

He urged the court to direct the I-T department to initiate action against the six IAS officers.

The bench said that the issue involved the public interest and it would be proper to refer the case to an appropriate bench.