NEW DELHI (Nov 19, 2011): Malaysian businessman Mirzan Mahathir has been named in an Indian court affidavit related to investigations in the Kakinada Port development in Andhra Pradesh.
Mirzan, 51, had secured the project during the tenure of the state's former chief minister, Chandrababu Naidu.
The 2,424-paged document revealed that a Mirzan-led international shipping consortium won the deep water seaport expansion venture in 1999.
The affidavit was filed by the late Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y. S. Rajasekhar Reddy's (YSR) wife, Y. S. Vijayalakshmi last month in the state's High Court.
YSR, an influential politician, was killed in a helicopter crash in 2009.
The petition revealed that the project was awarded on Develop-Operate-Transfer basis and the consortium was given 18 months to build two more berths in Kakinada Port, the second largest port in Andhra Pradesh.
"But the consortium failed to fulfill its commitment and the construction work of another berth only started five years later in 2004," said the affidavit.
Due to the delay, the state exchequer was alleged to have lost about RM33 million between 1999 and 2007.
Based on the court documents filed, the High Court has now directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to probe all allegations against Naidu and his associates.
Naidu, president of the Telugu Desam Party, was chief minister of Andhra Pradesh from 1994 to 2004.
He wrested the party from his late father-in-law, N. T. Rama Rao, once an iconic Telugu film actor.
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