Hyderabad, July 31 (IANS) Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) working president K.T. Rama Rao on Friday appeared before the special ACB Court here in the Formula E-car race case.
Rama Rao and other accused in the case personally appeared in the court in response to the summons issued in May.
Indian Administrative Service officer Arvind Kumar and former Chief Engineer of the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority, B.L.N. Reddy, also appeared before the court.
KTR and others paid sureties of Rs 1 lakh each and completed other formalities. The court later adjourned the hearing in the case to August 25.
Former Ministers Sabita Indra Reddy, Mahmood Ali, MLA Kaushik Reddy, BRS leader Praveen Kumar and several other party leaders and a large number of party workers also reached Nampally Court Complex to show solidarity with KTR.
According to the chargesheet filed by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) in March 2026, around Rs 55 crore was allegedly transferred to a foreign firm in violation of norms during the 2023 Formula E car race in Hyderabad.
KTR has been named accused number one in the case relating to the alleged misappropriation of public funds for conducting the Formula E race in Hyderabad during the BRS rule.
The ACB questioned KTR, Arvind Kumar, and B.L.N. Reddy multiple times in the case.
The former minister, who was questioned by the ACB four times, dismissed the Formula E case as a “bogus case”.
In November last year, then Telangana Governor Jishnu Dev Varma gave his nod to prosecute K.T. Rama Rao in the Formula E race case.
In September, the ACB submitted its report and, through the state government, sought the Governor’s sanction to prosecute K.T. Rama Rao, Arvind Kumar, and others.
After nine months of an investigation into the alleged irregularities in hosting the Formula E race in Hyderabad, the ACB submitted its report to the government.
The BRS leader has been accused of receiving Rs 44 crore in the form of an electoral bond from a sponsorship company in exchange for granting it the right to organise the race.
The ACB in December 2024 booked a case against KTR; former Special Chief Secretary, Municipal Administration and Urban Development, Arvind Kumar; and Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority former Chief Engineer B.L N. Reddy for alleged irregularities of Rs 54.88 crore in the Formula E deal.
After the Governor permitted the probe, an FIR was registered on a complaint by Principal Secretary, Municipal Administration and Urban Development, M. Dana Kishore, who stated that foreign remittances were made without prior approvals from the relevant regulatory authorities, resulting in an additional tax burden on the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority to the tune of Rs 8.06 crore.
–IANS
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