In a shot in the arm to the investigators, the court has termed these frozen properties, under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), as "proceeds of crime and involved in money laundering".
The direction of the Adjudicating Authority came after the ED had issued attachment orders against Ramky group of companies in January this year following an investigation which allegedly found that illegal favours were done by the then Andhra Pradesh government for this company and the firm gave kickbacks for favours by remitting illegal money in a firm owned by Jagan Reddy.
Jagan, who was arrested a year ago, is at present lodged in Chanchalguda jail in Hyderabad in the same case.
The instances pertain to the tenure of Jagan's father and former Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, who died in a helicopter crash in 2009.
"...We come to the prima facie conclusion that the defendants (Ramky group and Jagati publications) have committed the scheduled offences, generated proceeds of crime and laundered them. No doubt the properties attached are proceeds of crime and are involved in money laundering. We therefore order confirmation of the provisional attachment order," a bench of Chairperson of the Authority S K Sharma and K Raamamoorthy said in its order of June 6.