The Vijayawada ACB court has ordered the custody of the accused in the AP liquor case. The main accused in this case, Kasireddy Rajasekhar Reddy, retired IAS officer Dhanunjaya Reddy, former OSD Krishna Mohan Reddy, and Bharathi Cement Director Govindappa Balaji, have been allowed to be in custody for two days.
The court has said in the order that the investigation should be conducted in the presence of a lawyer from 8 am to 6 pm. The ACB filed a petition seeking their custody for a week, and after the arguments were completed, the ACB court allowed the four accused to be in custody for two days, on the 30th and 31st of this month.
Balaji Govindappa, who was arrested in this case and is on remand, sought the court’s permission to bring food from outside due to his illness. The ACB court has allowed him to bring food from outside on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The court has ordered that this meal be delivered to Govindappa under the supervision of a jail officer.
Meanwhile, the coalition government has formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to thoroughly investigate the AP liquor scam. Kasireddy Rajasekhar Reddy was arrested as part of the investigation into this case. Based on the details he gave, the police officers detained and arrested retired IAS officer Dhanunjay Reddy, former CM Jagan OSD Krishna Mohan Reddy, and Balaji Govindappa.
The SIT officials have already taken Kasireddy Rajasekhar Reddy into custody once and questioned him. When the SIT officials filed a petition in the court to hand him over to custody again, the court issued orders allowing his custody for two days. In the liquor scam case, Raj Kasireddy is A-1, Dhanunjaya Reddy is A-31, Krishna Mohan Reddy is A-32, and Govindappa Balaji is A-33.
Raj Kasireddy is the key mastermind of former Chief Minister Jaganmohan Reddy in the liquor scam worth thousands of crores of rupees. The SIT investigation revealed that he collected no less than Rs 60 crore from liquor manufacturers every month and transferred about Rs 3,000 crore to the Tadepalli Palace elders.
Dhanunjaya Reddy played a key role in designing and implementing the conspiracy to prepare the liquor policy to facilitate the collection of bribes. Krishna Mohan Reddy played a key role in transferring the bribe money received from liquor companies to Jagan. The SIT investigation revealed that Govindappa, who was close to A-1 Raj Kasireddy, played a key role in diverting thousands of crores of rupees from the liquor scam to shell companies and then to the ultimate beneficiaries.