Name liquor scam kingpins, ACB told

The High Court directed the ACB on Monday to place before it the names of kingpins behind the liquor syndicate scam.

A division bench comprising acting chief justice PC Ghose and justice Vilas V Afzulpurkar gave the direction while dealing with a batch of petitions urging the court to monitor the ongoing probe into liquor syndicate scam and to order a CBI probe into it.

ACB counsel Ramachandra Reddy said the bureau would need a further three months’ time to complete the investigation. The ACB has registered 48 cases, of which 24 are against government servants working in excise, police and other departments, 22 are against benamies and two are related to auction of liquor shops.    

While not inclining to grant three months’ time at this juncture, the bench directed the ACB to submit a detailed report within four weeks explaining stage-wise progress of each case and also naming the persons involved in each of it.

Referring to the earlier status report placed by the ACB before the court, the bench pointed out that there were no new facts or material in it and it was a replica of a prior report placed before them.

OM Debara, a resident of the city, filed a public interest plea seeking functional autonomy for the ACB, and PV Krishnaiah, an advocate, filed a petition seeking a CBI probe into the liquor scam and Sobha Hymavathi, former MLA and TDP women’s wing leader, challenged the transfer of SIT chief.

Krishnaiah alleged that ACB authorities had been hesitating to initiate action against MLAs, MPs and ministers involved in the scam and urged the court to order handing over the probe to the CBI. Justice Ghose said “We are not politicians to keep on dragging on a single issue. It is the court and it has a duty to dispose each and every case as early as possible.”

He told the ACB counsel to explain the progress of the probe within four weeks, and appropriate orders would be passed then.

He also told the counsel to place before the court the names of all the guilty persons, including the kingpins, behind the scam.