The ED has served KTR a notice, and he has been asked to depose before the investigation agency in the first week of next month with regard to a payment scam in connection with the Formula-E race hosted by Hyderabad in February 2023. The ED acted on a complaint by the Telangana Police’s Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) and filed an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) last week. Rama Rao has been directed to present himself on January 7 for the taking of his statement.
Apart from Rama Rao, other accused listed in the case are a senior IAS officer, Arvind Kumar and a former engineering official of HMDA, BLN Reddy. ED has called for Kumar on 2nd Jan and Reddy on 3rd Ja,n respectively. The alleged bribery involves a ₹55 crore transfer from HMDA funds to the Formula-E organization (FEO) without sanction, though such funds are reported to be at the epicentre of the said scam.
As for the accusations, KT Rama Rao cleared his stand, claiming that the payment was lawful in any way. He said: “Where is the corruption in this? We have paid ₹55 crore.” The latter drew attention to the fact that they (Formula-E) acknowledged the payment. Rama Rao said that the transaction was through an HMDA account maintained in the Indian Overseas Bank and clearly stated that the payment plan was very transparent.
On December 29, the state’s High Court of Telangana also added more days to the interim order provided to KT Rama Rao not to arrest him by the ACB team till December 31, when the arguments of the quash petition will be produced. Earlier, the court on 20th Dec had dismissed the KTR anticipatory bail petition while giving him protection from arrest till the end of December.
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