IANS/Hyderabad
I
Srinivasan: under CBI scanner
ndian cricket board chief N Srinivasan, who is also the managing director of India Cements, yesterday appeared before the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) here in an illegal wealth case involving YSR Congress Party leader Y S Jaganmohan Reddy.
The CBI officials questioned Srinivasan, who is president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), at Dilkusha Guest House, the camp office of the central investigating agency, the sources said.
Srinivasan was issued a notice early this month asking him to appear before the CBI to explain alleged quid pro quo investments his company made into the firms of Jagan, as the YSR Congress Party chief is popularly called.
India Cements allegedly invested Rs1.35bn into Jagan’s businesses in return for the benefits it received from the then government of Jagan’s father Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, who was killed in a helicopter crash in 2009.
The investments were made into Bharati Cements and Jagati Publications owned by Jagan in return for the benefits India Cements received in the form of additional water allocation for its units in Andhra Pradesh.
The CBI believes the then government issued two orders allocating additional water from Krishna and Kagna rivers to two plants of Srinivasan’s India Cements.
The water allocation for India Cements’ Nalgonda plant was enhanced from 300,000 gallons to 1mn gallons per day while the supply was raised from 300,000 gallons to 1.3mn gallons per day for its plant in Ranga Reddy district. The orders reportedly helped the company to double its production in the state.
Srinivasan was issued the notice after the CBI questioned Andhra Pradesh Information Technology Minister Ponnala Lakshmaiah on June 7 about the orders he issued as the then irrigation minister allocating water to India Cements and other companies.
Jagan, industrialist Nimmagadda Prasad and bureaucrat K V Brahmananda Reddy are currently in jail in the case of Jagan amassing illegal wealth.