For Kamalakar, this is his second tryst with central agencies after the Enforcement Directorate raids in early November.
Gangula Kamalakar (right) with Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao. (Supplied)
Telangana Backward Classes Welfare Minister Gangula Kamalakar and TRS Rajya Sabha member Vaddiraju Ravichandra on Thursday, 1 December, appeared before the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for allegedly maintaining an association with a fake IPS officer identified as Kovvi Reddy Srinivas Rao
The CBI had, on Monday, arrested Rao, who allegedly met private individuals at the Tamil Nadu Bhavan in New Delhi and demanded costly gifts posing as a joint director of the agency, officials said.
A Visakhapatnam resident, Rao allegedly demanded gifts from private individuals, assuring them of lobbying with unidentified public servants on their behalf for favourable responses in various matters, including in cases registered by different central investigative agencies, they said.
The agency is probing the political connections of Rao, who was flaunting them to get work done, they said.
It is alleged that Rao posing as a senior IPS officer, met six persons after coming to the national capital on 22 November, offering them favourable outcomes in various matters pending before government authorities, they said.
Earlier, on Wednesday, a team of the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) wing of the CBI came to the minister’s house in Karimnagar in Hyderabad and issued him a notice to appear before it, while another team issued a similar notice to the Rajya Sabha member.
The CBI summoned Kamalakar and Ravichandra to its headquarters in New Delhi to collect more information about the fake CBI officer.
It is learnt that the CBI found Rao taking photographs with Kamalakar and Ravichandra in separate instances.
At a community meeting, Rao was said to have met Kamalakar and taken a photograph. The photographs were found by the CBI after his arrest three days ago.
After Rao’s arrest, the CBI also conducted searches on the premises belonging to him, leading to the recovery of ₹21 lakh in cash, gold, and jewellery allegedly obtained as a pecuniary advantage, and other incriminating documents.
The accused was staying at Tamil Nadu House, allegedly impersonating an additional director general of Police.
The CBI produced him in a court in New Delhi, which remanded him in judicial custody.
This is not the first time Kamalakar is facing the heat of central investigating agencies.
A few days ago, the sleuths of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) conducted searches on the properties belonging to Kamalakar in the Karimnagar district of Telangana in connection with a probe into the granite business links.
The ED officials, who conducted searches at the offices and residential premises of six granite companies and their related entities in Karimnagar and Hyderabad on 9 and 10 November, said they seized unaccounted-for cash of ₹1.08 crore
The ED officials said they secured voluminous data relating to the despatch of granite for the last 10 years from the quarries.
The entire operation also appeared to have a link to the infamous Panama Papers case of 2016.
The case involved the leaking of 11.5 million pages — 2.6 TB — of data to news organisations across the world from the Panamanian offshore law firm and corporate service provider Mossack Fonseca.
It showed how the rich and mighty across the world were evading taxes, and where they had parked this unaccounted-for money.
At least 500 people from India alone were named in the papers. They included actors Amitabh Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, as well as now-disgraced business magnate Vijay Mallya.
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