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Minister in Kiran’s Cabinet caused 135 cr loss to exchequer
Vatti Vasanth Kumar, the then Tourism Minister in N Kiran Kumar Reddy Cabinet in the composite Andhra Pradesh state caused a loss of Rs 135 crore to the State exchequer, the Telangana State government submitted to the High Court at Hyderabad.
Telangana govt affidavit in HC
Hyderabad: Vatti Vasanth Kumar, the then Tourism Minister in N Kiran Kumar Reddy Cabinet in the composite Andhra Pradesh state caused a loss of Rs 135 crore to the State exchequer, the Telangana State government submitted to the High Court at Hyderabad.
The loss was caused to the exchequer by the then Minister by way of restoring a cancelled lease over an extent of 5.6 acre of prime land situated within the premises of Old Gandhi Hospital at Basheer Bagh to a private company that failed to develop the Urban Entertainment Centre as envisaged.
The State Tourism and Culture Department Secretary B Venkatesham filed an affidavit in the High Court following a directive from the Division Bench comprising of Acting Chief Justice Dilip B Bhosale and Justice S V Bhatt.
The Bench gave this direction while hearing a Public Interest Litigation petition filed by Chandra Kishore Jaiswal, who is seeking a CBI probe into this deal. The affidavit stated that the file pertaining to Urban Entertainment Centre on the premises Old Gandhi Hospital was processed in an unprecedented hurry during the fag end of the then Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy's tenure.
Just five days before the then Chief Minister tendered his resignation, the Tourism Minister Vasanth Kumar wrote on the file that developer of the project met him and agreed to withdraw the writ petition he had filed in High Court. Therefore he directed the authorities to restore the contract and give back the possession of the land to the developer. The department’s Special Chief Secretary called the developer for sorting out issues on February 19, the day the Chief Minister had resigned.
Venkatesham, in his affidavit, pointed out that the department had taken three decisions that were contrary to the decision of the empowered committee of Ministers. It entered into a fresh lease agreement with the same developer, who failed to carry out the task, for a period of 33 years that too on the old rates fixed in 2006. The lease commenced afresh from 2014. It also waived all the old dues of the developer, calling the developments that took place between 2006 and 2014 as due to unforeseen circumstances.
