Amaravati land case: AP-CID makes TDP chief Naidu accused No 1; asks him to appear for questioning

The Andhra Pradesh Crime Investigation Department has served notices to former chief minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu to probe his involvement in the alleged Amaravati land scam.

CID officials visited Naidu's residence in Hyderabad on Tuesday, and served him a notice asking him to appear before the investigating officer in AP CID's Vijayawada office on March 23.

The notice giving a further one week's time stated that Naidu is liable for arrest under Section 41 A of CrPC, for failure to attend/comply with the terms of the notice.

A similar notice was served to P Narayana, the municipal administration and urban development minister in Naidu's cabinet.

The move creating a political furore in the state comes two days after TDP's drubbing in the municipal polls.

The Jaganmohan Reddy government has been maintaining that Naidu's family, benamis and other TDP leaders have benefited enormously from surreptitious land deals executed before the December 2014 declaration of Amaravati in Guntur district as the new capital region of Andhra Pradesh.

Charging that land parcels were accumulated from the uninformed poor by the TDP men with privy official information, YSRCP leaders have popularised the alleged transactions as “insider trading.”

However, one such “insider trading” case was struck down by the AP High Court in January.

The notices to Naidu now are based on a FIR registered by the CID following the complaint of YSRCP MLA Alla Rama Krishna Reddy. The complaint stated that SC, ST assigned lands were procured deceitfully by those close to the then TDP government.

In his February 24 complaint, the Mangalagiri MLA said that the “middlemen part of the conspiracy made his constituency farmers believe that government would take away their lands without providing compensation.”(sic)

Verification of government orders issued then showed that irregularities were committed for wrongful gains, causing “irreparable loss to the SC, ST sections”, Alla said, asking for necessary legal action.

The cops said that the FIR was registered on March 12, based on a preliminary inquiry report submitted by a CID-DSP the same day.

The FIR stating Naidu, Narayana and other officials as “known/ suspected/unknown accused” was booked under the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act 1989, AP Assigned Lands (Prohibition of Transfers) Act 1977 and various sections of the IPC dealing with offences like criminal conspiracy, public servant disobeying laws with the intent to save offenders.

TDP leaders have termed the case as frivolous and the notices “a continuation of the political witch hunt by Jagan.” Naidu is said to be exploring legal options to deal with the notices.

Amaravati Capital Lands Controversy

In 2015, about 33,000 acres of agricultural land was pooled by the Naidu government from the farmers of 29 villages in Amaravati for the construction of “a world-class, mega capital,” in partnership with Singapore.

Soon after becoming the CM in 2019, Reddy stalled the capital works and constituted a cabinet sub-committee to probe the land grab charges.

The Finance minister Buggana Rajendranth-headed committee's report in December 2019, highlighted “various procedural, legal and financial irregularities and fraudulent transactions concerned with various projects, including the issues related to land in the CRDA region”.

CRDA refers to the AP Capital Region Development Authority, which Naidu had instituted to administer Amaravati works.

Based on the report, the Reddy government has, in February 2020, formed a special investigation team under a DIG-level IPS officer to probe the land-related etc. irregularities that allegedly took place during Naidu’s 2014 to 2019 rule. The YSRCP government had earlier said that it would ask for a CBI or Lokayukta probe.