Land fraud complaint against chief minister

HYDERABAD: Telangana Advocates’ Joint Action Committee leader T Sriranga Rao and four of his colleagues on Tuesday lodged a complaint with the Anti-Corruption Bureau here charging chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy with fraudulently handing over a 4.6 acre prime land plot at Nandagiri Hills in Jubilee Hills area of Hyderabad to his builder friend Amarender Reddy at a price that was far below the prevailing market rate resulting in a loss of Rs 140 crore to the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA).
At the prevailing market rate of Rs 50 crore to Rs 60 crore per acre, the plot should fetch the state an amount of more than Rs 240 crore. However, HMDA authorities fixed the upset price of the prime property at Rs 18 crore per acre at the behest of Kiran Kumar Reddy and auctioned it to Amarender for Rs 18.05 crore per acre after ensuring that there were only two bidders, the petitioners contended.
Navayuga Engineering Co Ltd, the other bidder, quoted Rs 18.01 crore per acre. Amarender, who participated in the bidding process through his company Net Ventures Pvt Ltd, got the entire 4.6 acre plot for Rs 84.74 crore and this resulted in a loss of more than Rs 140 crore to the state exchequer, the petitioners said in their complaint.
According to the complaint filed by Sriranga Rao and others with the ACB, HMDA got Rs 1.4 lakh for each square metre in the auction of plots in Nandagiri Hills in 2007 and stated that this was far above the current upset price fixed by the authorities. “CM Kiran hatched a plan along with his friend Amarender to knock off the prime land and what followed was an orchestrated bidding process where several bidders were prevented by CM himself from participating in the auction,” the complaint said.
The participation of Navayuga in the process too was part of the plan hatched by the CM because the engineering company has several obligations with the state in the light of it being one of the principal contractors of several ongoing irrigation works, the petitioners said. Though auction of smaller plots would have fetched more money to the state, the HMDA authorities deliberately did not make plots and instead put the site for sale as an undeveloped single plot, Sriranga Rao and others contended. According to them, Amarender is a close friend of Kiran Kumar Reddy right from their Nizam College days and verification of the call records of the CM, Amarender and HMDA officials would prove the conspiracy, the petitioners alleged in their plea.
The petitioners claimed that Kiran Kumar Reddy has directed GHMC officials to grant permission to Amarender’s firm Net Net Ventures for construction of a hotel and other commercial ventures including seven cellars and that the same is being sanctioned on a priority basis. In order to have access to the Nandagiri Hills site from all sides, an application has been made to demolish part of the women and child welfare building on Road No 45, Jubilee Hills and the same is under consideration of the authorities concerned, the complaint stated.
“It appears that Amarender Reddy is benami of Kiran Kumar Reddy in the project and the direct beneficiary is the chief minister himself,” Sriranga Rao and the other advocates said. The petitioners also submitted some documents citing them as proof of their allegations. They sought registration of an FIR against Kiran Kumar Reddy, Amarender Reddy, his company and concerned HMDA officials and take up investigation. Sriranga Rao told TOI that they lodged the complaint with ACB director Kumar Viswajeet as in-charge DG A K Khan was not in office.