TDP MLC P. Ashok Babu was arrested by the CID personnel late on the night of February 10 on the charge of forging his service records for promotion when he worked in the Department of Commercial Taxes.
Reports said that following a complaint filed by the president of the A.P. Commercial Taxes Employees’ Association B. Mehar Kumar with Lok Ayukta charging the MLC and former APNGOs’ leader with tampering with the service record to project himself as a Commerce graduate while he had done only a diploma in Computers, the Lokayukta, after an enquiry with the department officials, directed the Special Chief Secretary to file a case with the CB-CID.
The complainant said he had approached the Lokayukta after an inquiry officer gave Mr. Ashok Babu a clean chit “without going into the glaring evidence visible on the records.”
The TDP MLC, at a press conference he addressed in the past, had attributed the ‘confusion’ to ‘typographical error’ and had said that a departmental inquiry had given him a clean chit.
Last month, the CID booked cases against Mr. Ashok Babu under Sections 477 A, 465 and 420. The MLC is being questioned at the CID office in Guntur.
TDP calls it ‘act of vendetta’
TDP national president N. Chandrababu Naidu reacted strongly to the arrest and called it “an act of vendetta” by the ruling YSR Congress Party.
Questioning the party leader’s arrest at midnight, Mr. Naidu said Mr. Ashok Babu was being “targeted” for questioning the “government failure” on the PRC issue.
The party’s State president K. Atchannaidu alleged that the YCP government had unleashed a reign of anarchy in the State where the Opposition leaders were constantly harassed.
