NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday frowned at a Telangana high court order that barred the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) from arresting Kadapa MP YS Avinash Reddy and told CBI to send questions that it wanted to ask the MP in advance, saying it was “atrocious and unacceptable”.
“What kind of order is this by the high court,” a bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud and justice PS Narasimha said in course of an appeal by Suneetha Narreddy, daughter of the former Andhra Pradesh minister YS Vivekananda Reddy, who was found dead in his house on March 15, 2019. He was also the uncle of Andhra Pradesh chief minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy.
Senior lawyer Sidharth Luthra, who appeared for Suneetha Narreddy, told the bench, that there was an attempt to cover up the murder and the state government had sought to defeat the administration of justice by forming special investigation teams to probe the case and altering its composition from time to time. It was on a petition filed by Suneetha Narreddy that the Telangana high court in March 2020 directed CBI to take up the murder probe.
The Supreme Court on March 29 gave CBI time till April 30 to complete its probe into the larger conspiracy behind the murder in separate proceedings. It was in this connection that CBI sought to question the present Kadapa MP, YS Avinash Reddy, who is related to both the deceased and the present AP chief minister.
YS Avinash Reddy thought he may be arrested by CBI and approached the Telangana high court. In his order, justice K Surender barred CBI from arresting Avinash Reddy till April 25, told the MP to appear before CBI and ordered the federal agency to record the MP’s interrogation. The high court also that CBI will have to submit all the questions to be posed to him during the interrogation in writing.
The appeal by Narreddy said the high court order had “practically derailed the investigation process at this crucial juncture without giving due importance to the date of April 30 by which time the CBI is required to conclude investigation”.
The Supreme Court was initially inclined to stay the high court’s order but did not pass a blanket order after senior advocate Ranjit Kumar underlined that a stay on the high court direction will result in his immediate arrest.
The bench directed CBI not to arrest the MP till Monday and issued notice to the MP. The court also stayed further proceedings before the high court. “It is an atrocious order, totally unacceptable,” the bench said as it examined the April 18 order. The top court will take up the case again on Monday, April 24.
In her petition, Suneetha Narreddy also disclosed the tacit support enjoyed by the accused MP who belongs to the ruling political party in the state. She alleged that at the time of her father’s death, Avinash Reddy was present in her home and it was he who called up the police and informed that the former Kadapa MP died due to heart attack and that no case was required to be registered.
According to the postmortem report, there were six lacerated wounds on the body of the deceased and the cause of death was “hemorrhagic shock, injury to vital organ (brain).”
At the time of the incident, AP chief minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy was the leader of opposition and filed a petition in the high court demanding CBI probe into the incident. After YSR Congress Party came to power in the state in 2019, the chief minister formed SIT and reconstituted it thrice before Narreddy approached the high court for CBI probe.
In October 2020, CBI filed a charge sheet in the case naming four accused. The name of Avinash Reddy was separately added as a suspect among other persons. As CBI tightened its noose against the suspects in the case, AP chief minister gave a clean chit to Avinash Reddy on the floor of the Assembly in November 2021.
The petition pointed out that once a clean chit is given to the suspect, the victims of the crime could hardly expect that the accused in the case will be brought to justice.
