Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Wednesday questioned the Telangana police as to why they had not informed the family members of Patnam Narender Reddy about his arrest.
Justice K. Lakshman made this observation while dealing with a criminal petition filed by former BRS MLA Narender Reddy, seeking quashing of the Docket Order dated November 13, 2024.
Gandra Mohan Rao, senior counsel for Narender Reddy, submitted that the petitioner was arrested from the KBR park, while he was on a morning walk, and police had not informed the arrest of the petitioner to his family members.
He brought to the notice of the court about the leakage of alleged confessional statements released by police, stating that the petitioner had agreed to the conspiracy to incite violence at the behest of BRS working president K.T. Rama Rao.
The senior counsel contended that the case was lodged with political motive and the trial court, without considering the facts and provisions, routinely accepted the remand of Narender Reddy.
Public prosecutor Palle Nageshwar Rao, however, refuted the arguments of the senior counsel and said that Narender Reddy was arrested from his house and submitted that the police had followed due procedure in arresting the petitioner.
During the hearing, the court asked the public prosecutor as to why the information pertaining to the arrest of the petitioner was not informed to his family members, if he was arrested in the house and why it was informed to his close associate Saleem. Thereby, the judge observed, the police have violated the procedure of arrest.
The court further observed that the petitioner is a former MLA and he could not have run away from the arrest, had he been arrested from the house. The arrest of the petitioner from KBR Park is in violation of the arrest procedure and the police arrested him as if he was a terrorist.
The court also said that the police cannot arrest Narender Reddy only on the ground of “conspiracy” as the government alleges him of instigating farmers and others against parting with their land.
Going by call records, the court says Narender Reddy called the farmers 10 to 15 days prior to the Lagcharla incident, while his close associate has not made not more than one or two calls per day. So how can this case fall under the category of “conspiracy”, the court questioned the public prosecutor.
The judge directed the public prosecutor to furnish the statements of Lakshmiah and two others, based on which the name of Narender Reddy was included in the Second Remand Report dated November 13, 2024. On the request of the PP, the court adjourned the hearing to Thursday.
