Hyderabad: Enforcement Directorate (ED) today filed a prosecution complaint before the Metropolitan Sessions Judge-cum-MPMLA Special Court in the city against Congress party MP Anumula Revanth Reddy and TDP MLA Sandra VenkataVeeraiah in the sensational cash for vote scam. It also lodged the complaint against Bishop Harry Sebastian, RudraSivakumar Udaya Simha , Mathaiah Jerusalem and AVRN Krishna Keerthan in the the Cash for Vote’ scam.
The ED had initiated investigation on the basis of an FIR registered by the Telangana Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) against Revanth Reddy and others. The ACB conducted trap proceedings while making a bribe payment of Rs 50 lacs in cash to the Nominated MLA Elvis Stephenson representing Anglo Indian Community in Telangana State Assembly to lure him to either abstain from voting or to vote in favour of the TDP Party candidate,VemNarendra Reddy, in the M.L.C. (Member of Legislative Council) election,which was to be held on June 01, 2015. The ACB had arrested the accused, who were caught during their trap proceedings and filed a charge sheet after their investigation.
The ED had recorded the statements of the accused and the witnesses including that of A Revanth Reddy, Harry Sebastian, RudraUdaySimha who were involved in the actual handing over of the bribe amount of Rs 50 lacs to the MLA Elvis Stephenson. They were also confronted with the available audio-visual recordings of the encounters. The ED investigation had established that Anumula Revanth Reddy, Sandra VenkataVeeraiah and others had conspired to bribe Elvis Stephenson for securing his vote in favour of VemNarender Reddy, a candidate proposed by Telugu Desam Party in the M.L.C.
elections.
In a press statement , the ED said that In pursuance of the conspiracy, the accused had contacted Elvis Stephenson and offered him a bribe of Rs 5 Crore. Elvis Stephenson made a complaint to the ACB police and a ‘trap’ was laid and his encounters with the accused were secretly audio-video recorded. The accused persons met the complainant at his house on May 30,2015 and made the bribe offer. Thereafter, on May 31,2015, MP Revanth Reddy, R Harry Sebastian and RudraUdaySimha came at the house of Malcolm Taylor, who is a friend of Elvis Stephenson to hand over the advance bribe amount of Rs 50 Lacs in cash and were trapped by the ACB Police and taken into custody along with the seized cash amount.
The said cash was handed over to the accused by Vem Krishna Keerthan, who is the son of VemNarendra Reddy to help his father in the election.
The ED had provisionally attached the seized bribe amount of Rs. 50 lacscash, seized by Telangana ACB under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002. ED investigation had established that the accused persons 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 PMLA. The ED has urged the court to hold the trial for the offence of money laundering against the accused.