Published Sep 12, 2023 | 7:10 PM ⚊ Updated Sep 12, 2023 | 7:10 PM
TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu. (File photo/Supplied)
In a setback to Andhra Pradesh’s former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu, the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) court in Vijayawada dismissed his petition seeking to remain in custody at home.
Naidu sought house custody citing security reasons, saying he was not safe in the Rajamahendravaram Central Jail where he has been lodged.
The court delivered its verdict on Tuesday, 12 September, after remanding him to 14-day custody on Sunday, 10 September. The CID had arrested him at daybreak on Saturday at Nandyal in the multi-crore skill development scam and produced him in the ACB court in Vijayawada the next morning.
Naidu moved the petition in the court seeking custody at home on the same day he was remanded in judicial custody. After arguments in the court on Monday and till Tuesday noon, the court pronounced the verdict in the afternoon.
Additional Advocate General P Sudhakar Reddy argued that Naidu was in good health and that the government had provided him enough security in the jail.
He also pointed out that security was beefed up outside the jail too. He said the police were present round the clock and the administration was ready to provide medical help any time in case of an emergency.
He said the security provided to him was tight at the Rajamahendravaram jail and that the walls of the jail were 50-feet high. He pleaded against allowing house custody to Naidu as there was a possibility of him influencing the witnesses in the case.
Supreme Court lawyer Siddharth Luthra, appearing for Naidu, expressed fear of a threat to his client’s life in jail and requested house custody.
He said that the provision of the National Security Guard (NSG) protection to him (Z-plus) was proof that there was a real threat to his life and that it was much more now in the jail as hardcore criminals were lodged there.
Luthra argued that the state cannot say it was providing security to him as it was the Union government that had made an assessment of the threat perception and provided NSG protection.
Though the Supreme Court lawyer referred to the apex court allowing house custody for Gautam Navlakha on medical grounds, the court remained unconvinced. Navlakha was arrested for his alleged involvement in the Bhima Koregaon case in 2018.
Meanwhile, Naidu moved a lunch motion petition in the Andhra Pradesh High Court challenging his arrest by the CID. He contended that the way he was arrested was against the law. The high court adjourned the hearings on the petition to Wednesday.
The ACB Court in Vijayawada also adjourned to Wednesday hearings on the CID petition seeking Naidu’s custody for five days for further interrogation.
After the hearings commenced, the lawyer who appeared for Naidu sought time to file a counter, and the court obliged him.
In a related development, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, who returned to Vijayawada on Tuesday morning, took stock of the situation at a review at his Tadepalli office. Advocate General Subrahmanyam Sriram briefed him on the sequence of events since Naidu’s arrest at Nandyal on Saturday.
He primed the chief minister with the details of the status of the petition filed in the high court challenging his arrest. The chief minister is understood to have discussed the spadework done so far in the Amaravati Inner Ring Road scam.
Earlier in the day, TDP leader and Naidu’s brother-in-law Nandamuri Balakrishna said that neither he nor his party can be cowed by these acts of vengeful politics.
“Jagan Mohan Reddy ordered Naidu’s arrest because he wanted to see him behind bars at least for 14 days. No need to panic. I am here to take on the government,” he said.
