AP minister protests innocence in Jagan's assets case

Minister for Roads and Buildings Dharmana Prasada Rao, who submitted his resignation last month after the CBI filed a charge sheet against him, told reporters here on Sunday that he met Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy on Saturday night and offered an explanation.

The chief minister is yet to take a decision on the resignation submitted by his Cabinet colleague, but he is expected to respond soon to the Central Bureau of Investigation’s request for sanction to prosecute Dharmana in the case of Y S Jaganmohan Reddy’s illegal assets.

Y S Jaganmohan Reddy

The minister however claimed he was innocent. The CBI special court here has summoned Dharmana and two senior bureaucrats to appear before the court on September 25.

The summons was issued with regard to the fourth charge sheet filed in the case on August 13. Dharmana told reporters: “Without a Cabinet decision, not a single acre of land can be allotted by the revenue minister or even the chief  minister to any person or any organisation.

The business rules are very clear in this regard,” he said. The minister said the CBI had only made some charges against him; he could not be considered convicted on the basis of the charges, unless they are proved in court. Rao said he was confident that his innocence would be established. The CBI court also issued prisoner in transit warrants for Jaganmohan Reddy, former minister Mopidevi Venkataramana and industrialist Nimmagadda Prasad, who are all lodged in a jail here.

 The charges indicting Dharmana relates to allotment of  28,000 acres of land to Vadrevu and Nizampatnam Ports & Industrial Corridor, for which the then government of YSR Reddy had signed a MoU with Ras Al Khaimah emirate of UAE.