The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday said that said it has filed a chargesheet against Telangana Congress MP A Revanth Reddy, TRS MLA Venkata Veeraiah, and a few others under provisions of the Prevention of Money-laundering Act (PMLA) in connection with the alleged 2015 cash-for-vote scam.
Officials in the agency said that a prosecution complaint (equivalent to a charge sheet by Police) has been filed before a special PMLA court in Hyderabad’s Nampally.
The complaint has been filed against Congress MP from Malkajgiri Anumula Revanth Reddy, MLA Sandra Venkata Veeraiah representing the Sathupally constituency, Bishop Harry Sebastian, Rudra Sivakumar Uday Simha, Mathaiah Jerusalem, and Vem Krishna Keerthan in the cash-for-vote scam, the officials added.
Mr Reddy and Mr Veeraiah were earlier in the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) but now the former is in the Congress party while the latter has crossed over to the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS).
In the charge sheet, the probe agency claimed that its probe has established that the accused “committed the scheduled offence as well as the offence of money laundering by dealing with the bribe money, which is nothing but proceeds of crime as per the PMLA”.
“Thus, the ED has filed a prosecution complaint against the above named accused persons with a prayer to hold a trial for the offence of money laundering,” another senior official said.
The case dates back to 2015 when the state anti-corruption bureau “conducted trap proceedings while making a bribe payment of Rs 50 lakh in cash to Elvis Stephenson (a nominated MLA representing the Anglo-Indian community in the Telangana Assembly) to lure him to either abstain from voting or cast his franchise in favour of TDP candidate Vem Narendra Reddy in the MLC election, which was to be held on June 1, 2015”.
