The Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials are asserting that they have evidence against Chief Minister Revanth Reddy’s involvement in the infamour `Note for Vote’ case, in which he had reportedly committed Rs 50 lakh fraud. The ED officials, who named Revanth Reddy as the 1st accused in the chargesheet filed under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), are citing investigation details and court documents.
The case was listed for charge-sheeting on September 24 this year and the Nampally court ordered all the accused including Revanth Reddy to appear before the court on 16th of this month for the hearing of the charges. It is interesting to see whether the Chief Minister will attend the court.
Meanwhile, Jerusalem Muthaiah, the A4 in this case, has demanded that Revanth Reddy should attend the court. Otherwise, he warned that he will resort to fast in the court. He deplored that though the Judge is ready to begin trial in this case, due to absence of Revanth Reddy it is being dragged on and he is suffering to attend court adjournments for a long time.
It may be recalled that ahead of Telangana MLC polls, on June 1, 2015, Revanth was caught giving Rs.50 lakhs to MLA Elvis Stephenson for voting in favor of TDP candidate Narender Reddy. At that time Revanth was a TDP MLA. In 2018, the ED started an investigation into the case and recorded the statements of Stephenson, the complainant in the case, and others.
In the same year, Revanth joined the Congress. In December 2023, he became Chief Minister after the Congress came to power after winning 65 seats out of 119 assembly seats in Telangana. In this case, the investigating agency filed a charge sheet on July 25, 2021 and registered charges against Revanth Reddy and four others.
Revanth has been named as the main accused in this. In the statement recorded under Section 50 of PMLA, Matthaya Jerusalem (one of the accused) has confirmed that Revanth Reddy said that he wanted to persuade Stephen Sun to vote in cross-voting in favor of Narender Reddy.
An ED official said that Revanth Reddy told him that if Elvis Stephenson votes in favor of TDP MLC, he will be given Rs.5 crore, if Stephenson does not attend the voting, he will be given Rs.3 crore, along with a flight ticket to Jerusalem.
In February 2019, the Financial Crimes Investigation Agency questioned Revanth Reddy. According to ED sources Revanth Reddy told them that he was taken to a nearby apartment by police by force when he was discussing with Rudra Uday Simha, and gave a false statement. However, Revanth Reddy’s gunmen in their statement stated that nothing like that happened to Revanth Reddy.
Another official said that the video recording of the incident was shown to Revanth Reddy, in which he was clearly seen giving it to Stephenson. However, Revanth denied it stating that some other person looks like him.
