Ramoji Rao, son asked to appear before Vizag court

HYDERABAD: Justice Raja Elango of the High Court on Tuesday directed media baron Ch Ramoji Rao, his son Kiran and an authority of Ushodaya Enterprises to appear before the fourth additional chief metropolitan magistrate ofVisakhapatnam in connection with a criminal case pending against them.
The judge made this order while dealing with a petition filed by Ramoji Rao challenging the order of the lower court which refused to dispense with his presence in the court and to permit him to be represented by his counsel.
Vinod Kumar Deshpande, public prosecutor, brought to the notice of the court that a case was pending against Ramoji Rao in the lower court. "The FIR was booked in 2007, the chargesheet filed in 2010 and they have not appeared in the court even once so far," the PP said. "Let them appear once and then seek exemption," he said. The counsel for Ramoji too gave written undertaking that his client would appear before the court in Vizag.
The police registered a case against him following a direction from the lower court on the complaint of one MAEKK Varma on the charges of cheating.
According to the complainant, he gave his land on lease to Ramoji Rao to house his newspaper, but he had misrepresented to the authorities and tried to to grab a piece of property that was given to him in lieu of the land he lost to road widening there.
Deshpande told the court that the police have already filed a chargesheet in the case and the trial court is yet to frame the charges against the accused. However, the accused did not appear before the court till date.
The judge, while disposing the criminal petition, directed Ramoji to appear before the lower court on March 15 and also at the time of framing of the charges.