SC adjourns Naidu's squash petition to today

Vijayawada: The Supreme Court on Monday adjourned its hearing on Telugu Desam chief Nara Chandrababu Naidu’s plea to quash the FIR in the skill development scam case to Tuesday (October 10).

The Leader of Opposition filed a Special Leave Petition (SLP) in the top court challenging an order passed by the AP High Court declining to quash the FIR in the skill development scam case.

Justices Aniruddha Bose and Bela Trivedi, hearing Naidu's petition to quash the FIR in the skill scam case, will hear the arguments of AP CID on Tuesday. The CID is represented by advocate Mukul Rohatgi.

A bench of Justices Anirudhha Bose and Bela Trivedi heard the arguments on the applicability of Section 17-A of the Prevention of Corruption Act in the case. The court heard Naidu’s counsel Harish Salve and sought clarity on the application of Section 17-A quoting several high court judgments that interpreted 17-A differently.

Salve said, “On September 19, we made submissions, based on the premise that the FIR was registered in 2021. A Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) published by the central government shows how Section 17-A is to be applied. They have said that at every stage permission is to be taken.”

Stressing the need for the Governor’s permission to arrest Naidu, Salve referred to the recent judgment in the Pankaj Bansal case and argued that if the arrest was illegal, the subsequent remand order would not validate an illegal arrest.

At this juncture, Justice Bose asked, when was the inquiry started in the skill scam case? “It is based on a complaint of September 7, 2021,” Salve replied. He added that the complaint had nothing to do with the petitioner.

He further added, “There was a company called Design Tech. Design Tech obtained GST credits from a company called Skill Tech or something. Please see the complaint dated September 7, 2021. It was against Siemens, Design Tech etc alleging they swindled public money.”

Salve said that the number of preliminary inquiries done in 2021 matched with the reference in FIR, to establish that the inquiry commenced only in 2021 and hence Section 17-A of the PC Act is applicable to the case.

He argued that a change in the law of procedure applies retrospectively. However, Justice Trivedi reminded Salve that Rohatgi submitted previously that the inquiry started before the coming into being of the 2018 amendment (which introduced Sec 17-A).

But Salve said, “First of all, that statement is wrong. It was not the inquiry that led to this FIR. It appears some inquiry was done, which was folded up. Thereafter, a fresh inquiry was made."

Urging the bench to quash the FIR, Salve said that 17-A was introduced to prevent cases like these, where a person is politically targeted after the change of regime. “It is a sad attempt by the state to present a picture different from facts. On the question of interpretation of law, we may be right, we may be wrong. But blowing smoke on facts does not help,” he said.

“We are examining two things. One, whether the 5 July 2018 document was before the High Court and you had the opportunity to deal with it and if you had no such opportunity,” Justice Bose said, asking Salve whether he wanted to return to the lower court (AP High Court).

“In any case, sending back will not help me as the HC judge says the date of offence should be considered and not the date of filing the FIR,” Salve submitted.

Meanwhile, the bench wanted to know if the CID counsel submitted a compilation of all documents submitted before the AP High Court. Advocate Mukul Rohatgi said he had produced all the documents.