Telangana HC imposes ₹30 lakh fine on Chennamaneni Ramesh for suppressing his German citizenship details

Telangana High Court fines former MLA Chennamaneni Ramesh ₹30 lakh for concealing German citizenship

Telangana High Court has imposed a fine of ₹30 lakh on Chennamaneni Ramesh, former Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) MLA from Vemulawada constituency of undivided Karimnagar district, for suppressing facts relating to his German citizenship before the court. 

Justice B. Vijaysen Reddy of the High Court, dismissing writ petition filed by the former legislator challenging the Central government order (which was issued in 2019 declaring that he was not Indian citizen), said ₹25 lakh out of the Rs. 30 lakh fine amount should be paid to present Vemulawada MLA Adi Srinivas of Congress party who had been fighting legal battle for past several years challenging Ramesh’s citizenship.

The remaining ₹5 lakh should be paid to Telangana State Legal Services Authority. The judge said Chennamaneni Ramesh could not present to the court any documents from Germany confirming that he was not German citizen as he had claimed before the court. 

The judge noted that the former MLA had travelled several times to Germany and had been Vemulawada MLA despite holding German citizenship. The judge read out part of the verdict. The detailed judgement copy was yet to be uploaded onto the High Court website. 

Chennamaneni Ramesh is son of Ch. Rajeshwara Rao, who was CPI floor leader in undivided Andhra Pradesh State, before joining Telugu Desam party. Chennamanei Ramesh got elected as Vemulawada MLA first time in 2009 on TDP ticket. He won the by-election in 2010 as a BRS (then TRS) nominee. Again in 2014 and 2019 Assembly polls, he won the election as BRS candidate. 

Adi Srinivas entered the Vemulawada election fray first time in 2009 as Congress nominee but lost to Ramesh by a margin of 1.5%. In 2014, Adi Srinivas contested as BJP candidate and lost to Ramesh. He again contested in 2018 polls and lost to Ramesh. Srinivas won in 2023 election over BRS nominee Chalimeda Laxmi Narasimha Rao. 

Since 2009, Adi Srinivas had been claiming that Ramesh was German citizen and that the latter had contested as MLA by suppressing facts about his German citizenship.