The Andhra Pradesh government has abandoned all the action against retired IPS officer and former intelligence chief AB Venkateswara Rao after an FIR by the High Court and a charge sheet filed against him. Rao, an additional director general of a police officer, was booked under allegations including the provisions of criminal conspiracy and cheating and corruption act during the previous YSRCP government’s tenure. He was also in the headlines when allegations were reported that the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) government used Pegasus detective software between 2014 and 2019.
Rao has said that he was being targeted by YSRCP as he was considered close to TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu. A few days before the assembly elections on 11 April 2019, the Election Commission of India transferred Rao and asked him to report to his headquarters. The leaders of the YSR Congress Party had complained to the EC that some police officers were working in favor of the TDP government.
Rao challenged his suspension in the High Court, Supreme Court and Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), which abolished his suspension and directed the YSRCP government to reinstate him. He was restored on 31 May, 2024, and retired on the same day.
The YSRCP government also filed a charge sheet against him in a local court in Vijayawada on May 18, 2024 in an alleged corruption case. However, both the FIR and the charge sheet were issued by the High Court on Tuesday.
Chief Secretary K Vijayanand said that the TDP -led NDA government has reviewed the matter and has come to the conclusion that it was not a fit case to file a special holiday petition in the Supreme Court. “The government has decided to take further action against Rao,” Vijayananda said in the order.
During the tenure of YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, his government also alleged that Rao was involved in irregularities in the purchase of monitoring equipment from an Israeli firm and in a contract prize to his son -owned firm.
In March 2022, the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly passed a resolution to investigate whether the previous TDP regime had bought Israeli spyware, Pegasus. The proposal came when the ruling YSRCP told the House that she had noticed the comments of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee that while her government rejected a proposal to buy Pegasus 4-5 years ago, when Chandrababu Naidu was CM, software was acquired by Andhra Pradesh.
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Just after this resolution was passed, Rao held a media conference in which he said that although the NSO group had approached the state government to sell Pegasus, it was rejected. He said that as he was the intelligence at that time, it was his responsibility to answer the allegations and clean the air. Focusing on its media conference, the state government issued a reason notice to Rao on 5 April, stating that he violated Rule 6 of the AIS rules as he did not take permission from the state government to address the media conference.
In April 2022, the Supreme Court directed the state government to restore Rao and post it. The state government appointed him as the Commissioner of printing and stationery, but suspended him on the same day for the same reasons.
In January this, the TDP -led NDA government regularized Rao’s suspension and recognized it as a time spent on duty. This enabled him to get full salary to be on suspension from 8 February, 2020 to 7 February, 2022 and 28 June 2022 to 30 May, 2024.
Tribunal (T) Corruption Case (T) Vijayanand of Government Order (T).
