Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has finally been cleared of the IMG Bharata land allotment scam, which has been haunting him since 2004.
The Telangana High Court dismissed two Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petitions seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the 2003 allotment of 850 acres of government land in Gachibowli and Mamidipally to IMG Bharata Academies Private Limited at a throwaway price by Naidu's government.
The first PIL was filed in 2012 by veteran journalist A B K. Prasad and YSR Congress Party general secretary V Vijayasai Reddy, while the second was submitted by city-based advocate T Sriranga Rao, who is currently the chairman of the Telangana Electricity Regulatory Commission.
The petitioners alleged that Naidu had gone out of his way to favor the company in setting up sports infrastructure in the city, despite the company having no connection to the original IMG company based in the U.S.
However, before the land could be handed over, there was a change of government in the then united Andhra Pradesh, and the subsequent Y S Rajasekhar Reddy government canceled the land allotments.
The company approached the court but did not succeed. The present Telangana government is now working to recover the valuable land, which is worth thousands of crores.
While the case was still in court, Congress leader Palwai Goverdhan Reddy and Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy’s mother, Vijayalakshmi, sought a CBI inquiry against Naidu.
However, the court dismissed the petitions, stating there was no evidence implicating Naidu, as the decision was made by the cabinet.
Later, Sai Reddy, A B K Prasad, and Sriranga Rao filed separate petitions in the High Court. After a prolonged hearing, the High Court ruled on Wednesday that Sai Reddy had no locus standi in the case, as he is a member of the YSRCP and, at the time of filing, was under arrest in the quid pro quo case.
The court also criticized Sriranga Rao for failing to disclose crucial information regarding prior dismissals of similar complaints, which had already been addressed by the court.
The court found that the issues raised in the PILs had been previously adjudicated and that there was undue delay in bringing these cases forward.
