Jagan aide Vijay Sai arrested

HYDERABAD: Effecting the first arrest in the alleged illegal assets case pertaining to YSR Congress president Jaganmohan Reddy, the CBI on Monday took into its custody Vijay Sai Reddy, the financial advisor of Jagathi Publications and other companies owned by the son of YS Rajasekhara Reddy.
Like more than a dozen times before, Vijay Sai Reddy was summoned by the CBI on Monday afternoon for questioning in the Jagan illegal assets case, but by 7 pm, after grilling him for nearly eight hours, the investigative agency arrested him.Vijay Sai is slated to be produced before the CBI court on Tuesday.
Confirming the arrest, CBI joint director V V Lakshminarayana said Vijay Sai Reddy has been charged under sections 120 B (criminal conspiracy), 420 (cheating), 409 (criminal breach of trust by a public servant), 477 (A) (Falsification of accounts) of the IPC and section 13 (2) read with 13 (1) D of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The CBI, which had already filed its FIR in the CBI court in the Jagan assets case, has named Vijay Sai Reddy as the second accused. Jagan is the first accused in the case. While the charge against Jagan is that he conspired with his late father YS Rajasekhara Reddy and rolled out public assets to unscrupulous private investors and got investments into his companies on a quid pro quo basis, the charge against Vijay Sai Reddy is that as the group's financial advisor, he played the role of a main conspirator in clothing the illegal transactions with a seemingly legal cover with the help of his expertise in the auditing and financial management areas. Rerouting of black money into Jagan companies is one of the prime tasks he handled and this made him culpable, CBI sources said.
While Vijay Sai Reddy has been maintaining that he cannot be booked under section 409 of the IPC as he is not a public servant, the CBI went ahead and did so on the grounds that he squarely falls under the definition of a public servant.