In its report submitted to the High Court a few days ago, the Andhra Pradesh Cabinet Sub-Committee, which scrutinised the land transactions in the capital region, mentioned several prominent politicians and businessmen as involved in insider trading that allegedly took place between June 1, 2014 and December 31, 2014.
The committee, headed by Finance Minister Buggana Rajendranath Reddy, stated in its affidavit that at least 4,070 acres were purchased by persons who were privy to information on the location of the capital, and their “benamis” in Amaravathi, Mangalagiri, Pedakakani, Pedakurapadu, Tadepalli, Tadikonda and Thullur mandals in Guntur district and Chandarlapadu, Ibrahimpatnam, Penamaluru and Vijayawada rural mandals of Krishna district at nominal prices from farmers in the run-up to issuance of notification of the capital.
The committee named former Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, former Minister Paritala Sunitha, Public Accounts Committee chairman and MLA Payyavula Keshav, NRI Vemuru Ravi Kumar Prasad, former MLAs G.V.S. Anjaneyulu and Dhulipalla Narendra, Kambampati Rammohan Rao, among a host of others.
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The panel said the purchase of land was in blatant violation of the A.P. Assigned Lands (Prohibition of Transfer) Act, 1977 and SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.
While some persons knew the location of the capital in advance, others holding lands on the fringes benefited by way of defining of its (capital’s) boundaries in a manner that suited their interests. Besides, large tracts of land, including those owned by the government, were fraudulently surrendered towards the Land Pooling Scheme (LPS).
The committee further mentioned the names of former Ministers Nara Lokesh, P. Narayana and Prathipati Pulla Rao, Ravela Kishore Babu and Palle Raghunadha Reddy and former MP M. Murali Mohan as involved in the “capital area benami transactions.”
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The committee asserted that the LPS was itself deviant from the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 and the A.P. Land Acquisition (Relief and Rehabilitation) Act, 2013.
The land transactions outlined procedural, technical, financial and legal improprieties of far greater magnitude than had been put in the court’s notice on the basis of available data, hence, an in-depth investigation would bring out the true extent of irregularities, the committee opined.