Vijayawada: The Supreme Court dismissed the AP government’s special leave petition (SLP) filed challenging the AP High Court’s grant of anticipatory bail to Telugu Desam president N. Chandrababu Naidu in a case of anomalies in alignment of Amaravati Inner Ring Road.
A two-judge bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Dipankar Datta was hearing the SLP on Monday.
Justice Khanna asked, “Does the applicability of Section 17-A of Prevention of Corruption Act arise in this case as well? Allegations pertain to the period of 2014, but inquiry was after that? If Section 17-A applies, then the non-procurement of prior sanction will be an issue.”
AP government counsel Ranjit Kumar argued that there were charges pertaining to IPC including Section 420 dealing with cheating and others.
Naidu’s counsel Sidharth Luthra informed the court that the AP government’s plea against the anticipatory bail granted to co-accused in the case was dismissed by the apex court earlier.
Then Justice Khanna said, “Why should we not follow this order as it is the same allegation, same FIR and same set of facts. He said, “if an SLP in one case has been dismissed then we should not be entertaining this.”
The court pronounced its order in the case accordingly, “Our attention is drawn to an November, 2022 order in an SLP in the case of co-accused in FIR No. 16 of 2022. In view of the aforesaid position, we are not inclined to issue notice in the present SLP and the same is disposed of in terms of the order passed in the other SLP. We however, clarify that the observations made in the impugned order will not affect the investigation and the investigating agency will be free to investigate, uninfluenced but the observation made in the order of the AP High Court. Further, in case, the respondent do not cooperate with the investigating agency, the petitioner will be at liberty to move for cancellation of bail in the courts below.”
It may be mentioned that Naidu was accused no. 1 and he along with then minister for municipal administration P. Narayana, Lingamaneni Ramesh, Lingamaneni Venkata Suray Rajasekhar, K.P.V. Anjani Kumar, M/s Heritage Foods Private invited and others were accused in the case.
