Behind the controversial transfer of the chief of the Anti-Corruption Bureau’s Special Investigation Team looking into the Andhra Pradesh liquor scam is an investigation that began as a minor probe last year but has now blown up into a major scandal involving some state ministers, more than 70 MLAs, politicians and police officers.
The raids reaching Andhra Congress president Botsa Satyanarayana’s native Vizianagaram district apparently proved the last straw. Satyanarayana, who is the Transport Minister and is considered a rival of Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy, took his woes all the way to the high command in Delhi. The CM was summoned, and the transfer order came soon after for SIT chief K Sreenivasa Reddy.
While ACB Director General D Boopathi Babu resisted, this was to no avail. It wasn’t the first time pressure had been put on Babu as big names kept tumbling out. The initial report was so alarming that the chief minister had asked the DG to show it to him first.
It started as a probe into complaints that liquor shops were charging more than the maximum retail price. The ACB made three arrests initially, of cops held accepting bribes, and these led it to a well-oiled network of syndicates involving liquor shop owners, local police officials, excise officers, commercial tax inspectors, journalists and politicians, who were allegedly paid to look the other way as liquor shops fleeced customers. The bribes, the ACB found, ran into hundreds of crores every year.
“The ACB was under tremendous pressure when a member of the liquor syndicate of Khammam district said that he had paid Rs 10 lakh to a minister. The DG stuck to his guns and the raids continued all over the state,” an official said.
The long stint he had earlier in the CBI’s ACB in Chennai perhaps prepared Babu for what he was in for. He formed the SIT into the scam, headed by deputy K Sreenivasa Reddy.
In case of Satyanarayana, the ACB claims to have found proof linking him to shops in Vizianagaram. The ACB found that in auctions conducted by the government, many successful bidders were either workers or cashiers in liquor shops. In many cases they held BPL ration cards. Questioning how they could raise Rs 50 lakh to Rs 1 crore for the licences, an official said the investigation linked most of these shops to members of Satyanarayana’s family.
Babu initially threatened to go on long leave if the government did not roll back the transfer order for the SIT chief. Only after senior officers, including Chief Secretary Pankaj Dwivedi and DGP Dinesh Reddy, intervened did Babu let go.
While new SIT chief B Shivadhar Reddy is described as one of the most upright officers in the state, Babu is yet to give him any work. The ACB, meanwhile, will file its report in the High Court and submit a chargesheet on April 16.
courtesy ie