Hyderabad, Jan. 3: The CBI yesterday arrested Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy’s closest aide Vijay Sai Reddy in a move that is being seen as a tightening of the noose around the Kadapa MP.
Vijay, 52, is listed as the second accused in the disproportionate assets case against Jagan in the chargesheet filed almost five months ago.
Confirming the arrest, CBI joint director V.V. Lakshminarayana said Vijay has been charged under the Prevention of Corruption Act as well as Sections 120 B (criminal conspiracy), 420 (cheating), 409 (criminal breach of trust by a public servant), 477 (A) (falsification of accounts) of the Indian Penal Code.
The chartered accountant was today produced before a special CBI judge – the courtroom was crowded with Vijay’s arrest being seen as a precursor to the arrest of Jagan — who remanded him in judicial custody till January 17. He has been sent to Chanchalguda jail. The court will tomorrow review the CBI petition seeking his police custody for 14 days.
Vijay, the vice-chairman of the tainted Jagati Publications – the holding company of Jagan’s media business -- and the YSR family’s auditor for the past three decades, was summoned by the CBI yesterday for interrogation. He had been called more than a dozen times in the past. Around 7pm, after eight hours of questioning, he was arrested.
The FIR filed earlier in the CBI court says that Jagan conspired with his father, the late chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy, and got land grants in special economic zones issued to unscrupulous private investors in return for investment in his companies.
The charge against Vijay is that as the Jagan group's financial adviser he conspired to route the black money into the MP’s companies — the CBI holds that he set up nearly 75 benami firms across the country and, through them, channelled investment into Jagan’s companies to hoodwink the law and to avoid taxes.
In its remand note, the CBI also said during his tenure as director of the Oriental Bank of Commerce between 2006 and 2008, Vijay got loans worth Rs 800 crore sanctioned to Jagan’s group of companies.
