Vijayawada, Nov 28 (NationPress) Y. V. Subba Reddy, the former chairman of TTD and leader of the YSRCP Parliamentary Party, made an appearance before the SIT investigating the Parakamani theft case at the Sri Venkateswara Swamy temple located in Tirumala on Friday.

The Special Investigation Team (SIT), led by Ravi Shankar Ayyanar, the Additional Director General of CID, was conducting the questioning at the CID office in Vijayawada.

During his tenure as TTD chairman, Subba Reddy oversaw the case where TTD employee Ravi Kumar donated seven properties to the temple after the theft case was resolved in a compromise settlement at the Lok Adalat.

On November 25, former TTD chairman and MLA B. Karunakar Reddy also appeared before the SIT. He was in office when the theft case was initially reported.

The investigation was initiated after the High Court intervened, challenging the earlier closure of the Parakamani theft case following the Lok Adalat settlement.

In April 2023, Ravi Kumar was apprehended while stealing $920 from the Parakamani (the coins and currency notes counting center).

The case, initially registered at the Tirumala police station, was moved to the Lok Adalat, where a settlement was reached in September 2023. In this agreement, Ravi Kumar committed to donating seven properties valued at Rs 40 crore, situated in Tirupati and Chennai, under the name of TTD.

Recently, a petition was filed in the Andhra Pradesh High Court asserting that the theft investigation was inadequate, as the former governing board of TTD had prematurely closed the case post-settlement. The petitioner, Macherla Sreenivas, sought to challenge this closure.

As part of the inquiry, the SIT has also interrogated former police officials and TTD staff.

Jaganmohan Reddy, who served as the Circle Inspector at the Tirumala One Town Police Station during the case registration in 2023, along with other officials, have presented themselves before the SIT.

Tragically, Y. Satish Kumar, a former Assistant Vigilance and Security Officer of TTD and the complainant in the theft case, was found dead under suspicious circumstances on the railway tracks at Komali village, near Tadipatri in Anantapur district on November 14. A postmortem indicated he had suffered a blow to the back of his head with a sharp object.

Satish Kumar had caught Ravi Kumar in the act of stealing money during the counting of the hundi collections.

Last week, the High Court mandated police protection for Sreenivas, the petitioner responsible for prompting the investigation.