Hyderabad: Former minister Y. Satyanarayana Chowdary alias Sujana Chowdary accused the Enforcement Directorate of falsifying facts and involving him in an unrelated issue. The ED has summoned him for questioning on November 27.
Two days after the raids at his house and offices during which the ED seized incriminating documents and six cars including a Ferrari, Mr Chowdary, a close aide of AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, said the agency had named him without verifying facts. “It issued a note stating that the companies have done a fraud of '5,700 crore, which looks like a falsification,” Mr Chowdary said on Sunday.
“The allegations made by the ED that there is a fraud of '5,700 crore by the Sujana group involving 1,200 shell companies and attributing my name to it, are all false. I have not taken part in company matters since I entered politics.”
“I have spoken to the directors of Sujana Group and they said that they were not involved in any fraud. The ED claimed that the searches are in connection with a case booked at Chennai, following a bank’s complaint on Best & Crompton Engineering Projects Ltd, Chennai (BCEPL),” he said.
“Banks exist to give loans. It is not a criminal offence to take loans from banks. If there is any fraud committed by any company, how can the investigators attribute it to me and the companies which I was a part of earlier? The ED has given judgement even before conducting trial,” he said.
He said he had told the ED officials that he could come for questioning after the parliamentary sessions in January next year.
He said Best & Crompton was established by his friend, who like other businessmen visited him for suggestions. “After I entered politics and moved out of the Sujana group, I have not taken my salary from the company. My legal team is looking into the aspects of the note issued by the ED mentioning that fraud is done by me, and also if ED can carry out searches and seizures under the PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act),” Mr Chowdary said.
Of the six cars seized, he said three were on his son’s name and the fourth was an old car worth less than '6lakh that he had kept as a keepsake.
He said, “The raids against me and on Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy cannot be compared. These seem to be politically motivated.”
In a press release, the ED said three cases were registered against BCEPL for falsification of accounts and submission of false statements and obtaining hundreds of crore of loan from the banks.
In early October, ED conducted searches at Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, during which it seized incriminating documents and records. The searches resulted in recovery of 126 rubber stamps of shell companies at Punjagutta. The verification revealed that BECPL and Sujana Group functioned under the chairmanship of Mr Y. Satyanarayana Chowdary alias Sujana Chowdary. The BCEPL directors stated that Mr Chowdary was responsible for all the activities of the Sujana group and they had acted on his insistence either directly or through other officials.
