Andhra Pradesh home minister Sabita Indra Reddy, the third and the latest minister from state Cabinet to be chargesheeted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the ongoing case against Kadapa MP YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, on Tuesday said her continuance as minister was morally untenable. The CBI on Tuesday filed a memo seeking the special court to issue summons against all the accused, including Sabita Reddy, to appear for prosecution.
The minister's statement comes a day after the CBI filed its fifth chargesheet naming her as the fourth accused and also in the light of open suggestions made by some of the her Cabinet colleagues not to rush to any drastic decision.
A similar scene played out when senior minister Dharmana Prasada Rao was named in an earlier chargesheet and was subsequently retained in the Cabinet under mounting pressure from a group of ministers potentially facing similar fate as that of Mopidevi Venkata Ramana, who was forced to resign the day he was arrested by the CBI.
While the minister said she was firm on her decision to resign from the council of minister, there was neither any confirmed report to suggest she had put in her papers at a meeting with chief minister yesterday nor has there been any official comment on her continuance by the chief minister so far.
The investigating agency has dedicated its fresh chargesheet to Dalmia Cements (Bharat) Limited on grant of limestone lease and land to set up a 2.5-million tonne cement plant in Kadapa district in 2008, linking these alleged favours to the investments made by the company in Jagan's firms in an alleged quid pro quo deal.
Sabita Reddy was the mines minister when these governmental grants to the company took place, thus allegedly being a part of a larger conspiracy. The chargesheet has been filed amid reports that a fresh round of efforts on behalf of Jagan, who is in a local jail for the past 10 months, to get a bail from the Supreme Court was on the cards.
Last year, the Supreme Court had asked the CBI to complete the investigation at the earliest in response to the contention of Jagan's lawyers that it was deliberately filing multiple chargesheets in a single case of alleged conspiracy only to keep him within the confines of jail walls as long as possible.
