ACB court witness marathon session of arguments

Vijayawada: The ACB Special Court witnessed a marathon session of heated arguments with the AP CID arguing strongly to accept the remand report and impose judicial remand to AP skill development scam accused TD chief N. Chandrababu Naidu while his counsel defended him strongly by saying that it was a politically motivated case with elections round the corner, on Sunday.

The TD supremo was produced before the third additional judge-cum-special judge for special and ACB cases B. Satya Venkata Hima Bindu here on Sunday just five minutes before 6 am as it was mandatory to produce the accused within 24 hours before the court.

Soon after, AP CID counsel Ponnavolu Sudhakar Reddy submitted the remand order to the judge who in turn took some time to go through content of the order before hearing the case.

Once the hearing began, the judge asked whether Naidu was having anything to say for which he submitted he did not have any connection with the case and said that he was implicated in the case out of political vendetta.

Naidu’s counsel and senior advocate in Supreme Court Siddartha Luthra argued that section 409 of IPC dealing with criminal breach of trust by a public servant was not applicable in the case and also said that though the case was booked in 2021, Naidu’s name was not mentioned in the FIR  and asked how his client could be arrested in the case. He also argued about the procedural lapse in taking Naidu into custody and failure to present him before the court within mandatory 24 hours period by saying that a huge posse of police personnel took control of the camp where Naidu was staying in Nandyal from 11 pm in Friday and were officially showing that he was arrested at 6 am on Saturday. He wanted the court to take into consideration the timing of police taking control of his camp and said that such a move affected the personal rights of Naidu. He asked the court to give direction to the CID to get the call data of AP CID officials from 10 am onwards from Friday to find out who influenced them to arrest Naidu. He argued that prior permission was not taken from the Govenor for the arrest of Naidu though it was mandatory to do so as Naidu was former CM. He asked for rejection of remand report submitted by the AP CID and grant bail to Naidu.

However,  AP CID’s counsel strongly argued that they had substantial evidence on charges framed against Naidu in the case as was mentioned in the remand report and prayed for sanction of 15 days judicial remand to Naidu under section 167 of CrPC who was Accused No. 37.

Once the court pronounced its order by imposing 14 days judicial remand to Naidu and directed the police to move him to Central Jail in Rajahmundry for detention, Naidu’s counsel moved two petitions in the court with one to allow him to be under house arrest with a provision to get food and medicines from home and in second petition, his counsel asked for special room in the Central Jail keeping in mind his health condition and advanced age.