Former AP Advocate General booked by ACB over "Amaravati land scam"

The ACB issued a press note on Tuesday that a criminal case under various sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act, read with Section 120-B of IPC, was registered based on the complaint received by the Director General, ACB, and also the report of a preliminary inquiry. This is a case of abusing of official position by the then Advocate General Dammalapati Srinivas and thereby obtaining pecuniary advantage in the form of landed properties for his father-in-law, brother-in-law and his associates and acquaintances from June 2014 to December 2014.

Amaravati, Sep 15 (PTI): The Anti-Corruption Bureau of Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday registered a case against former state Advocate General Dammalapati Srinivas and 12 others in connection with the alleged Amaravati land scam. The development came a day after Srinivas filed a petition in the high court seeking a direction to the government not to take coercive actions, like arrest, against him in relation to any inquiry or investigation being conducted.

The former AG has requested the court to call for all records pertaining to any inquiry or investigation being conducted by any of the state agencies and all respondents, including the Chief Minister and the DGP. The ACB issued a press note on Tuesday that a criminal case under various sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act, read with Section 120-B of IPC, was registered based on the complaint received by the Director General, ACB, and also the report of a preliminary inquiry.

This is a case of abusing of official position by the then Advocate General Dammalapati Srinivas and thereby obtaining pecuniary advantage in the form of landed properties for his father-in-law, brother-in-law and his associates and acquaintances from June 2014 to December 2014. "And later he obtained such pecuniary advantage for himself and his wife through purchase of some of these properties in the years 2015 and 2016, the ACB said in the release.

Those landed properties, which were purchased during that period, were located either in the core capital area or within the limits of Capital Region Development Authority but abutting the core capital area, it said. Investigation into the case was in progress, the ACB added.

The scam related to alleged purchase of over 4,000 acres of land by persons privy to information of location of the capital and their suspected benamis, between June 1 and December 31, 2014 during the previous TDP rule. In his writ petition, Srinivas alleged that to foist a false case, the state government has been trying to conduct rowing inquiries against him to create evidence by phone tapping, shadow policing and intimidating his relatives.

The "false allegations" of the government were based on 'hypothetical' assumptions that he had amassed numerous properties by virtue of office, he submitted. "This fiction is a part and parcel of the present governments political agenda to malign the earlier dispensation and dissenting persons by foisting false cases, intimidating people, scuttling dissent and chilling their voices, Srinivas claimed.

The entire controversy is a self-centred rhetoric to satisfy the political agenda of trifurcating the (state) capital and maligning the earlier dispensation by scandalous allegations, only to take political advantage of such whimsical and baseless allegations, the former AG noted. The state government has already requested Centre for entrusting to the CBI, the investigation into the scam.

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