Hyderabad:The Telangana High Court on Tuesday reserved its decision in BRS working president K.T. Rama Rao’s petition seeking to quash the ACB’s case against him of misappropriation of public funds in the holding of a Formula E race here last year.
Justice K. Lakshman extended the interim orders issued earlier, to not arrest Rama Rao, till the pronouncement of its order.
While hearing Rama Rao’s quash petition, the court asked which provision of the HMDA Act had enabled the agency to spend public funds to conduct a sports event. The court also asked who had executed the agreement on behalf of the government and the HMDA with the Formula E Operations Ltd (FEO). The court inquired about the status of the ACB investigation into the case and the recording of statements.
For more than three hours, counsels representing Rama Rao, the ACB and M. Dana Kishore, MA&UD principal secretary and de facto complainant, submitted their contentions.
Counsels for ACB and Kishore stated that it was with the involvement of Rama Rao that that the letter for approval for transaction of money from the HMDA metropolitan commissioner was sanctioned within 24 hours on October 11, 2023. Generally, such approvals takes some time.
Advocate-General A. Sudarshan Reddy representing the Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) submitted five accusations against Rama Rao alleging lack of prior approval from the Council of ministers, absence of finance department approval, payment to FEO before the event took place, no clearance from the Election Commission, and that of foreign exchange rule violations.
Further, AG Sudarshan Reddy, along with the citations of various judgments, defended registering a case under Section 409 of IPC (criminal breach of trust) and 13(1)(a) of the Prevention of Corruption Act against Rama Rao and other accused, including IAS officer Arvind Kumar.
Sudarshan Reddy argued that the responsibility of paying the FEO was not that of the government. The cost had to be paid by the promoter, Ace Next Gen Pvt Ltd, and the FEO could file a suit against the promoter if the agreement amount had not been paid.
Rama Rao, with his own interest involved in the issue, made the HMDA pay the amount on behalf of the government and this showed his clear interest, the A-G said. He brought to the notice of the court that the promoter had to submit a bank guarantee of around 200,000 pounds and no such thing happened. The promoter simply left after one season of car racing.
Defending the case of criminal breach of trust, the Advocate-General said that Supreme Court had declined to quash the charge of Section 409 of IPC against Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra Pradesh.
Senior counsel C.V. Mohan Reddy, appearing for principal secretary Dana Kishore, argued that Rama Rao, then the minister of municipal administration, had ordered disbursal of the HMDA amount as if it belonged to himself. Even, his own money, senior counsel quipped, Rama Rao would have spent more cautiously.
Siddharth Dave, Supreme Court senior counsel, while arguing for Rama Rao, said that the contents of the complaint lacked the ingredients to bring in Sections 405 and 409 of the IPC as there was no criminal breach of trust. There was no reference to any specific type of offence involving the ‘misappropriation of conversion of entrusted property by a person’ as required for criminal breach of trust.
Senior counsel Dave further argued that the complainant was an IAS officer, who is a part of the state government. He argued that the de facto complainant and ACB were arguing that procedural violations had taken place during the second agreement, but it cannot be said that every violation was of a criminal nature.
Senior counsel Dave submitted that the Supreme Court had delivered different opinions in the petitions filed challenging the Section 409 of IPC against Chandrababu Naidu.
