VIJAYAWADA: The Andhra Pradesh CID on Friday filed a chargesheet in the AP FiberNet Phase-1 Project Scam in the court of the Special Judge for SPE & ACB cases-cum the III Additional District and Sessions Judge, Vijayawada.
Telugu Desam chief Nara Chandrababu Naidu is among the main accused in the case.
The APCID said Naidu personally recommended that the FiberNet project be executed by the Energy I&I department, instead of the IT department. Naidu personally got Vemuri Harikrishna Prasad appointed as a member of the governing council-governance authority, despite his criminal background, the chargesheet said.
Naidu gave approval for the estimates of the FiberNet project without considering the fact that no market survey was done for the prices of the items or the standards to be followed.
“Naidu brought pressure on senior government officials to include Vemuri Harikrishna Prasad in various tender evaluation committees, to revoke the blacklisting done by the government; then prevailing against M/s Terasoftware Pvt Ltd; and to finally award the tender to M/s Terasoftware Pvt Ltd by silencing the protests from other bidders such as M/s Pace Power.”
It added, “Naidu unceremoniously transferred officers such as B. Sundar seeking a fair tendering process and posted more pliable officers in their place.”
The other accused are Vemuri Hari Krishna Prasad, managing director of NET INDIA, Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad, the then member of the governing council, e-Governance Authority, Electronics & IT Agency and Innovation Society, and member of the technical evolution committee.
Koganti Sambasiva Rao, IRTS, S/o Srinivasa Rao (late), who formerly worked as VC&MD INCAP and MD APSFL, and presently working as chief commercial manager, Passenger Marketing, South Central Railway, Secunderabad, and others.
Notably, after Naidu was arrested in the Skill Development Scam case and sent to judicial custody by the ACB court, the CID had filed for a prisoner transit warrant to produce Naidu in the FiberNet Scam case, too, before the ACB court.
Naidu filed petitions seeking anticipatory bail, initially before the ACB court and then the High Court of Andhra Pradesh. Both the courts declined to grant him anticipatory bail. He then approached the Supreme Court, seeking anticipatory bail and a hearing on the pending Special Leave Petition.
