SC to Hear Naidu SLP on FIR on October 3

Vijayawada: The Supreme Court would hear Telugu Desam president N. Chandrababu Naidu’s Special Leave Petition seeking the quashing of the FIR booked against him by the AP-CID in the skill development scam on October 3.

Naidu challenged the AP High Court’s dismissal of his plea for quashing the FIR in the skill development scam by filing the SLP. The apex court was expected to take up the hearing in the case on Wednesday as Naidu’s counsel Siddartha Luthra met Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud on Tuesday pleaded that the case be heard on Wednesday.

However, apex court judge Justice S.V.N. Bhatti recused from hearing by citing the ground that he hailed from Andhra Pradesh.

In fact, when the petition was initially listed for hearing before a two-member bench comprising Justice Sanjiv Khanna and S.V.N. Bhatti, Justice Khanna told Naidu’s counsel Harish Salve, “My brother has some reservations about hearing the matter.”

Harish Salve replied, “We can say nothing about that. Please list it as early as possible.”

Then Justice Khanna directed that the matter be placed before a bench other than of SVN Bhatti.

Another of Naidu’s counsel Siddarth Luthra mentioned the matter before the CJI for urgent listing and the latter agreed to list the matter for hearing on October 3. However, the CJI declined his request to restrain the trial court judge (ACB court) from dealing with the AP-CID’s five days custody plea for Naidu.

Later, Luthra argued that the FIR booked against Naidu by the CID was unsustainable in law as no prior sanction as per Section 17-A of Prevention of Corruption Act was obtained from the Governor.

He alleged that the CID custody was sought and FIR after FIR were being booked against Naidu by the state government with a view to deriving political mileage for the ruling party in the context of the upcoming polls.

Counsel argued that Section 17-A stipulated a mandatory requirement for a police officer to seek prior approval from the competent authority for any inquiry into any offence committed by a public servant.

However, senior advocate Ranjit Kumar representing the AP government contended that the skill development scam was worth crores of rupees and it happened before an amendment was carried out to Section 17-A of PC Act in 2018. Hence, there was no need to take prior permission from the Governor.

Naidu was arrested by the AP-CID on September 9 in Nandyal and has been in judicial remand since then.