The Telangana High Court on Tuesday refused to quash FIR registered against Bharat Rashtra Samiti working president K.T. Rama Rao in connection with conduct of Formula E race in the state. The Court also removed interim protection granted to the former minister from arrest.
The Telangana High Court refused to grant relief to Rama Rao and dismissed his plea seeking to quash the FIR registered by the Anti-Corruption Bureau against him over alleged irregularities in conducting Formula E race. Hearing the case, Justice K. Lakshman dismissed the petition saying it was not the right time to grant the relief to former municipal administration minister.
The bench had reserved its judgment after hearing arguments from both sides on December 31. The Court had also granted interim protection from arrest until the pronouncement of judgment for Rao.
The ACB in the state registered a case against Rama Rao, son of former chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao, on December 19, over alleged payments to conduct the Formula E race in 2023. Allegedly, some of the payments were made using foreign currency without proper approvals.
The case was registered under relevant sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act and IPC dealing with criminal misappropriation, criminal misconduct, criminal breach of trust and criminal conspiracy that allegedly resulted in loss to the government exchequer to the tune of about Rs 55 crore.
The newly formed Congress government cancelled the race which was scheduled to be held in February this year. The Enforcement Directorate is also probing alleged irregularities in the case.
Besides Rao, senior IAS officer Arvind Kumar and retired bureaucrat B.L.N. Reddy are named as accused in the case. The development comes as the ACB has summoned Rao for questioning on January 9.
