Former Tadipatri MLA and Telugu Desam Party leader J.C. Prabhakar Reddy and his son J.C. Asmith Reddy were arrested by he Anantapur police in Hyderabad on Saturday.
A team from Anantapur raided Mr. Prabhakar Reddy’s house in Jubilee Hills around 2 a.m. and after two hours of searches, the father-son duo was taken into custody and shifted to Anantapur for further investigation in the case.
The former MLA, along with his brother and former MP J.C. Diwakar Reddy, runs the Jatadhara Company Travels, popular as JC Travels.
Sources told The Hindu that Mr. Prabhakar Reddy was facing criminal charges of tampering the vehicle registration rules for 154 lorry trailers and fabricating documents. He is also accused of selling BS-III vehicles after registering them as BS-IV vehicles during the TDP regime in Andhra Pradesh.
When contacted, a senior officer with Hyderabad police said, “Our counterparts in AP did not inform us in advance about the arrests. We were informed only when the accused were being shifted to Anantapur after the arrest.”
On Friday, former Minister and TDP leader K. Atchannaidu was arrested by the AP’s Anti-Corruption Bureau from Nimmada village in Srikakulam in connection with an alleged ₹151-crore scam in the ESI Corporation.
Joint Transport Commissioner S.A.V. Prasada Rao said Mr. Prabhakar Reddy’s act was not limited to production of fake invoices to get the vehicles registered in violation of the Supreme Court orders, but also production of fake insurance policies to the RTA authorities, which endangers public safety and road safety. Further criminal cases had to be booked against the two companies for producing fake insurance certificates, he added.
In Andhra Pradesh, out of 101 vehicles, 60 were seized (46 in Anantapur and others in Kadapa, Guntur, Nellore, Kurnool and Chittoor districts) and 41 vehicles were yet to be traced. Three cases were filed by the DTC Kurnool against Jatadhara Industries Pvt Ltd and C. Gopal Reddy & Co. while 24 criminal cases were filed by the DTC Anantapur.
The Joint Transport Commissioner said Mr. Prabhakar Reddy approached the new owners (persons who bought the vehicles from them) and settled amounts in the range of ₹12 lakh to ₹14 lakh in return for an assurance that they would not file criminal cases of cheating. Mr. Rao contends that they had settled the issue in respect of 35 vehicles and no complaints were filed by the owners.
However, 10 owners held a dharna in front of Mr. Prabhakar Reddy’s house in Tadipatri on June 6 and lodged a complaint against him and Jatadhara Industries in the police station there.
