Formula E-Race Case: Telangana Court Pauses KTR's Arrest Until Verdict On His Petition

Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Tuesday paused the arrest of Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) working president and former Telangana minister KT Rama Rao until a decision on his petition in the alleged Formula E racing scam is made.

The BRS working president KT Rama Rao had sought to quash the FIR registered against him by the Anti-Corruption Bureau in the case.

The HC also extended the interim protection against arrest for Rama Rao, also known as KTR, until the order was pronounced. 

After hearing the arguments from the state government as well as the defence, Justice K Lakshman reserved the orders. 

Advocate General A Sudarshan Reddy pointed out that payments were made to Formula E Organisation without following business rules and necessary approvals while the defence advocates argued that there was no criminality in the case. 

The Telangana ACB on December 19 registered a case against Rama Rao, a minister in BRS regime, over alleged payments, part of it in foreign currency without approvals, made to conduct the Formula-E race in Hyderabad during the previous BRS regime. 

The case was registered under relevant sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act and IPC dealing with criminal misappropriation, criminal misconduct, criminal breach of trust and criminal conspiracy that allegedly resulted in a loss to the government exchequer to the tune of about Rs 55 crore. 

The FIR named Rama Rao, an MLA now, as the prime accused, senior IAS officer Arvind Kumar and retired bureaucrat BLN Reddy as accused no 2 and 3 respectively. (with PTI inputs)