JOIN USProbe into Naidu wealth gets under way
They were asked to submit details either in person or through a nominated representative within a week.
The move came in the late evening, hours after Naidu’s close aide C M Ramesh, a TDP vice president filed a special leave petition in the Supreme Court on Monday. TDP Parliamentary Party leader Nama Nageswara Rao’s Madhucon Constructions has also become a co-petitioner in the apex court.
Only on Monday the TDP chief had declared in New Delhi that he would not challenge the High Court direction for CBI to probe into his assets and actions as the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh for nine years till 2004. The court has also directed the ED, SEBI and the Home Ministry to scrutinise the allegations made by the YSR Congress honourary president Y S Vijaya Lakshmi against all of his associates and termed them as his “benamis”.
Naidu’s problems will multiply if the Hyderabad branch of the ED plans to inquire into possible FEMA violations allegedly committed by Naidu when he was chief minister of AP between 1995 and 2004, particularly funding his son Lokesh’s education in US.
One of the allegations levelled by Vijayamma in her petition was that Naidu’s son Nara Lokesh secured a seat in Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburg and later in prestigious Stanford by paying huge donations in dollars as an average student who secured only 50 percent marks in the qualifying exam.
Her allegation was that Satyam Computers chief Ramalinga Raju doled out Rs 22 crore donations to both universities in dollars to facilitate Lokesh’s admission. The ED is likely to tap both universities and also check with Satyam Ramalinga Raju to clarify the charge.
The other charge is that Naidu’s mother gifted Lokesh prime land of 3.5 acres at Madhapur area when he was studying abroad. Vijayamma sought to know how Naidu’s mother acquired the land and how she gifted the same to Lokesh when he was an NRI and not eligible to buy agriculture land.
Both Naidu and YSR had engaged in a verbal duel in the Assembly on the overseas education of their wards. YSR told the House that Satyam had paid quid pro quo for Lokesh’s admission in the US. Chandrababu Naidu said YSR’s son had come back from US by “return post”.