Former Andhra Pradesh chief minister and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) national president N Chandrababu Naidu was arrested by the Andhra Pradesh police from Nandyal in the early hours of Saturday in connection with an alleged skill development project corruption case.
Naidu was later transferred to the Special Investigation Team (SIT) office in Vijayawada and is likely to appear before the ACB court later in the day. After long resistance by TDP activists, Naidu was detained by AP police and CID detectives at the RK Function Hall in the town.
According to the arrest warrant issued by the police against the TDP leader, he has been booked under various operations including Sections 120(8), 166, 167, 418, 420, 465, 468, 471, 409, 201, 109 of the Criminal Procedure Code. Register the case. rw 34 and 37 IPC and other sections of Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. “The case revolves around setting up a Center of Excellence (CoE) cluster in Andhra Pradesh with a total project value estimated at Rs 3,300 crore,” the state CID said in a release on Saturday.
The fraud is said to have caused huge losses of over Rs 3 billion to the Andhra Pradesh government.
Citing an investigation, CID said GoAP/APSSDC provided an advance payment of Rs 100 before any expenditure was made by the private entity. 371 Crore, equivalent to the entire 10% of the government’s commitment. “The majority of the funds advanced by the government were transferred to shell companies through false invoices where the items mentioned in the invoices were not actually delivered or sold,” the release said. The report added that the investigation is focused on finding the “misappropriated” funds. , therefore a detention interrogation of Naidu is “necessary”.
The arrest sparked protests by Lib Dem leaders and activists across the state, and a number of other party leaders and activists were also detained.
