High Court Fines ex-BRS MLA Ramesh Babu Rs 30 Lakh

Former Vemulawada MLA Chennamaneni Ramesh Babu, of the BRS, today received a blow in the Telangana High Court for allegedly suppressing facts relating to his German citizenship before the court.

The court expressed its displeasure over the attempts of Ramesh Babu to mislead it, and dismissed his petition that he was not a German citizen.

The case has been heard in the court for ten-and-a-half years now.

During the hearing, the court observed that false information was given to it, and that forged documents were submitted.

The court asked what passport Chennamaneni Ramesh was using to travel all these days. Babu's lawyer told the court that he had travelled on a German passport. The lawyer added that he still had a German passport, but argued that the passport was not the standard upon which to decide on the citizenship of the former MLA.

The court then asked if he had an Indian passport, and the lawyer told the court that he did not.

Ramesh Babu was then fined Rs 30 lakh by the court. The court ordered him to pay Rs 25 lakh of that amount to Vemulawada MLA Adi Srinivas (who has been fighting the legal battle for the past several years challenging Ramesh's citizenship) of the Congress, and Rs 5 lakh to the High Court Legal Service Authority within a month.

Babu's lawyer sought that the order be kept under suspension for a month.

For those who came in new, Ramesh Babu made his political debut in 2009 - he entered politics that year as the successor of his father and former MLA Rajeshwar Rao, a communist, and won four consecutive elections to be the Vemulawada MLA: he was elected on a TDP ticket in 2009, then re-elected in a by-election in 2010 on a TRS ticket after he resigned to join the TRS, and then on TRS tickets in the general Assembly elections of 2014 and 2018.

The Congress' Aadi Srinivas, who lost the election in 2009 to Ramesh Babu, approached the High Court alleging that Babu had obtained citizenship with false certificates, and that his election as the MLA was invalid. Since then a prolonged series of legal battles ensured that Ramesh stayed on as MLA and even kept winning elections. He was finally denied the ticket by the BRS for the 2023 election due to the case, though he was rehabilitated as an Advisor to the government by the then CM K Chandrashekar Rao.