Jagan case: CBI grills BCCI chief N Srinivasan for 7 hrs

HYDERABAD:

The CBI on Monday sought to know from N Srinivasan, MD of The India Cements Ltd, the logic behind his decision to invest Rs 90 crore in rival cement company Bharati Cements when the latter was in the hands of Jaganmohan Reddy.

Srinivasan, who also happens to be the chairman of the BCCI and owner of IPL team Chennai Super Kings, was summoned by the probe agency as part of its ongoing investigation into the Jagan assets case and was questioned for more than seven hours at the CBI's makeshift office at Dilkusha Guest House on Raj Bhavan Road. The probe agency sought to know certain details about how India Cements managed to secure huge additional water allocations for its plants in Nalgonda and Rangareddy districts from the YSR regime. The CBI's charge is that the YSR regime allotted water from Kagna and Krishna rivers for these two plants which crossed the quota allotted to Andhra Pradesh under the Bachawat award. In return for the water allocations, India Cements invested Rs 135 crore in Jagan's companies, the CBI alleged.

Responding to the CBI query about why he invested in another cement company, Srinivasan reportedly maintained that his decision to invest in Jagan's Bharati Cements paid off in the ultimate analysis as he made a huge profit by selling his shares when Jagan sold his cement firm to a French player. The CBI wants to unravel as to why not only India Cements, but two other cement companies, Penna Cements and Dalmia Cements, also chose to invest in a rival cement company. Its contention is that all these three firms were given limestone mines and huge water allocations. The CBI is said to be done with the questioning of India Cements MD on Monday and that it will be the turn of the MDs of the other two companies to be quizzed beginning Tuesday.

Sources said the role of three ministers in the alleged benefits doled out by the YSR regime to the three cement companies will come under CBI scanner.

The investigating agency is slated to probe whether then revenue minister Dharmana Prasada Rao allotted huge tracts of land containing limestone to these companies and whether former irrigation minister Ponnala Lakshmaiah cleared the additional water allocations. The role of then mines minister Sabita Indra Reddy in granting mining licenses to these cement firms for extracting limestone will also be examined.