Probe agencies, courts should no longer drag their feet in cases against Jagan, says Excise Minister Kollu Ravindra

The fresh ED plea in Telangana High Court should help speed up proceedings against the YSRCP chief, who has managed to delay the hearings by filing more than 4,000 discharge petitions till date, observes Kollu Ravindra

Minister for Excise and Mines & Geology Kollu Ravindra has said that it has been characteristic of YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) president Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy to distort facts related to his alleged involvement in major economic offences being investigated for the past 15 years.

Mr. Ravindra has expressed the hope that the Telangana High Court will, at least now, bring the cases to a conclusion following a fresh appeal by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to speed up the proceedings.

"Rajasekhara Reddy is among the accused in some of the cases of money laundering, inflating the value of company shares and creation of shell companies," the Minister said.

Mr. Ravindra alleged that Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy had managed to delay the court hearings by filing more than 4,000 discharge petitions. The Supreme Court had observed that economic offences were like cancer to society and the country's economy, he said, insisting that the investigating agencies and courts could no longer drag their feet on these high-profile cases.

'Cases gathering dust'

Meanwhile, in a video message to the media, Sarvepalli MLA Somireddy Chandramohan Reddy said that "unfortunately the case files are gathering dust for a decade and a half."

He noted that it had taken only two years for the courts to pronounce their judgment in the cases registered by the CBI against former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao in the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha MPs' bribing scandal.

Similarly, no sooner than a case was booked against him, senior BJP leader L.K. Advani stepped down as a Member of Parliament, and returned to the Lok Sabha after being acquitted in two years.

In contrast, Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy had successfully escaped from the clutches of law by using all the resources at his disposal, Mr. Chandramohan Reddy alleged.

Now that the ED made a forceful plea to the Telangana High Court to speed up the proceedings, it should brook no delay to show to the world that nobody was above law.