KCR goes into huddle with State legal eagles

Hyderabad: Amid reports of Governor Jishnu Dev Varma giving his nod to the prosecution of BRS working president KT Rama Rao in the alleged Formula-E race scam, party supremo K Chandrashekar Rao held a meeting with a group of legal experts.

According to party sources, the BRS chief had discussion with the legal team of the party seeking their opinion on how to proceed in case the government goes ahead with its plans to implicate KTR in the Formula E funding. The BRS leader wanted the team to take the advice from the top lawyers so that the case can be argued effectively.

The legal team is said to have told the BRS chief that the CM heads the HMDA committee and the funds were taken on the approval of the committee. The CM has discretion of allocating funds. The Revanth Reddy led government has been seriously pursuing the Formula E race scam and the ACB has been investigating the irregularities in the payment of Rs 55 crore to the organisers without following the procedures.

It is learnt that the ACB would be issuing notices to the then MAUD Principal Secretary Arvind Kumar, followed by KTR. The allegation was that the payment of Rs 46 crore was made in the foreign currency against the RBI norms. The BRS working president had earlier said that there was no corruption involved in the Formula e race.

He had said that the Formula e race was brought to Hyderabad only to increase the brand image of the city and also to attract investments and create employment opportunities. He said that the funds were part of a tripartite agreement with Hyderabad’s urban development body HMDA, FIA, and sponsors.