High Court seeks reports on complaint against Ramoji Rao

HYDERABAD: Justice C V Nagarjuna Reddy of the High Court on Tuesday directed the Visakhapatnam police commissioner and the station house officer of Three Town police station to file their reports within three days on the status of their investigation into a complaint against media baron Ch Ramoji Rao.
The judge was hearing a petition filed by M A E K K Varma, who gave his land to house Eenadu newspaper office in Vizag on lease.The main contention of the petitioner is that though two years were over after he filed a complaint against Ramoji Rao charging him with cheating and misrepresentation, the police did not act in the matter despite a direction from a local court to do so.
According to Varma’s petition, Ramoji Rao cheated him on two counts. By suppressing the fact that he is only a leaseholder and not the owner of the land, Ramoji had misrepresented to the authorities that he was the real owner of the land. Next he surrendered 517 square metres of leasehold area to the authorities for the purpose of roadwidening. He got 817 square metres of adjacent land allotted in his name and when it came to the issue of paying money for this new allotment of land, he asked the authorities to adjust the money that was payable to him for the land he surrendered for roadwidening, varma said in his petition. It is the owner of the land that has to get the benefit not the tenant, he said.
The judge posted the matter to Friday after seeking reports from the police commissioner and the local SHO.