By IANS,
New Delhi/Hyderabad : In a major setback to YSR Congress Party leader Y. S. Jaganmohan Reddy, the Supreme court Friday declined to grant him bail in the disproportionate assets case
While declining to grant bail, the apex court bench headed by Justice Aftab Alam rejected the petition, saying: “You will have to wait.”
The rejection of the bail plea came after Additional Solicitor General Mohan Parasaran told the court that Jaganmohan was involved “in very serious economic offences which were unparalleled”.
Parasaran told the court that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was tracing the footprints of his economic offences even in foreign countries, including in Mauritius and Luxembourg.
Senior counsel Gopal Subramaniam, who appeared for Jaganmohan, told the court his client was arrested when he was fully cooperating with the investigating agency that too on the eve of the by-election in the Andhra Pradesh.
Jagan, as the Member of Parliament from Kadapa is popularly known, was arrested by the CBI May 27 this year and has been since lodged in Chanchalguda Central Jail in Hyderabad.
The apex court agreed with the CBI contention that if released on bail, the son of late chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy might tamper with the evidence.
The federal agency told the court that the investigations were on into various aspects of the case. It argued that the investments into Jagan’s firms came in the form of bribe by companies and individuals who were benefited from the various orders of the government of Rajasekhara Reddy.
Those arrested and jailed in the case include former minister Mopidevi Venkatramna, industrialist Nimmagadda Prasad and bureaucrat K.V. Brahmananda Reddy.
Dharmana Parasada Rao, a senior cabinet minister, was also named in the four charge sheets filed in the case in August this year. The minister for roads and buildings has submitted his resignation to the chief minister.
The CBI in May this year had arrested excise minister Mopidevi Venkataramana. He resigned from the cabinet the same day.
Prasada Rao was holding the revenue portfolio and Mopidevi was in charge of infrastructure and investment in the cabinet of Rajasekhara Reddy.
The CBI believes the ministers violated norms to extend several concessions to Nimmagadda Prasad, one of the promoters of Vadrevu and Nizampatnam Ports and Industrial Corridor (Vanpic).
The CBI had last year booked Jagan and 72 others after the high court while hearing a petition by a Congress leader directed it to conduct a through probe into the allegations against Jagan.
The Supreme Court dismissed Jagan’s bail plea a day after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) attached assets worth Rs.51 crore of the companies owned by Jagan and also those which were benefited from the government orders.