Andhra Pradesh cops’ ‘area’ suspect

Hyderabad: While Andhra Pradesh has five police stations working out of Hyderabad, their jurisdiction and territorial powers are in a big legal mess. AP Anti-Corruption Bureau police station, CID’s two police stations including for cyber crime, the Special Intelligence Branch that deals with Naxals, and Counter Intelligence, which deals with terrorism, operate from Hyderabad.

While the Telangana police claims territorial jurisdiction of Hyderabad, the deputy director of AP Anti-Corruption Bureau’s Central Investigation Unit on Wednesday issued a note asking the public to complain to them about corruption relating to heads of the departments. Interestingly, all heads of departments of the AP government are situated in Hyderabad and now the big legal question is whether TS ACB will have jurisdiction over them or AP ACB.

A senior AP CID official said, “The AP Reorganisation Act restricts jurisdictions of the AP police to 13 districts. However, all major cases belonging to the five wings are booked in the five AP police stations in Hyderabad and are tried by the courts in Hyderabad. So the local court in Telangana deals with AP cases. But the cases that are transferred from AP districts are chargesheeted in the concerned district and dealt with there itself.”

AP DGP J.V. Ramudu said, “Several issues are not sorted out. It can’t be done in day. It is not a textbook wherein problems and solutions are given. Practically there are several issues which need to be sorted out.”

Telangana advocate T. Sriranga Rao said, “Law and order is a state subject. When an offence takes place in Hyderabad, the TS ACB / TS CID will have powers. AP police will have no powers.”