Published Jul 22, 2026 | 5:39 PM ⚊ Updated Jul 22, 2026 | 5:39 PM
Gade Sai Krishna (Credit: @revathitweets on X)
Synopsis: The Society for Protection of Constitutional Rights has alleged before the Andhra Pradesh High Court that the State-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the alleged custodial death of Gade Sai Krishna is structurally compromised and incapable of conducting an independent investigation. In a PIL, the society alleges that the probe has been deliberately limited to shield senior police officers and political figures, and that there were attempts to influence the victim’s family and destroy evidence. It has sought the transfer of the investigation to the CBI.
The Society for Protection of Constitutional Rights has alleged that the State-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted to probe the alleged custodial death of Gade Sai Krishna is “fundamentally inadequate, structurally compromised and wholly incapable of inspiring public confidence in the investigation.”
The allegation is contained in its public interest litigation (PIL) before the Andhra Pradesh High Court, which seeks the transfer of the investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
The petition, filed in June by the society through its President, Advocate Dr Gochipata Srinivasa Rao, seeks to quash GO Rt No. 1215 dated 21 June, which constituted the SIT. It also requests the High Court to direct the CBI to undertake a “comprehensive, independent, and time-bound investigation” into the alleged illegal apprehension, detention, custodial torture, murder, secret cremation of the body, destruction of evidence, and subsequent cover-up.
The petition further seeks directions to transfer all records and evidence to the CBI, provide protection to witnesses, and require periodic status reports to be submitted before the High Court.
It describes the case as a “classic instance of custodial violence where the state’s investigative machinery is compromised by systemic bias and local political interference.” It contends that the petitioner has the requisite locus standi to maintain the PIL because the accused is a police officer and the victim’s family has allegedly been “financially silenced under duress.”
The petition argues that the Supreme Court has recognised exceptions to the general rule on standing in cases involving heinous human rights violations, such as custodial deaths, particularly where victims or their families are unable to effectively pursue legal remedies.
It further alleges that the State police establishment, “acting in concert with the top political brass of the ruling dispensation”, sought to dissuade the victim’s family from pressing for a CBI investigation.
According to the petition, the Chief Minister personally met the family and offered assurances of justice to pacify their concerns. It further claims that monetary compensation and government employment were offered to family members “as an inducement to accept a settlement and to withdraw from the pursuit of independent judicial accountability.”
“It is precisely because this sophisticated and multi-layered strategy of political and institutional manipulation is being actively and successfully deployed against the cause of justice in this case that the Petitioner Society most urgently and earnestly urges this Hon’ble Court to transfer the investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation, which alone is beyond the reach of these ancient but devastatingly effective instruments of statecraft and political pressure,” the petition states.
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The petitioner has argued that the investigation cannot be left to the State police because the SIT comprises serving officers drawn from the same police hierarchy as the accused, suspended Circle Inspector SSVV Nagaraju, rendering it incapable of conducting an independent probe.
It contends that the investigation may eventually have to examine the role of senior police officers who are institutional peers or superiors of members of the SIT, creating what it describes as an inherent and irreconcilable conflict of interest.
“A Special Investigation Team comprising exclusively serving officers of the Andhra Pradesh State Police is fundamentally and structurally defective,” the petition states.
It argues that the SIT’s professed independence is “a mere façade” that is incapable of inspiring public confidence or satisfying the constitutional requirement of a fair, impartial, and effective investigation into allegations of State-sponsored violence.
The petition further contends that allowing a SIT drawn from the same police establishment to investigate those allegations “would be tantamount to asking the architects of the cover-up to investigate themselves, an outcome that no system of law and no conception of justice can tolerate.”
It also contends that GO Rt No. 1215 is “arbitrary, unreasonable, and violative of Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution of India.”
The petition further alleges that the FIR was “deliberately and artificially limited” by naming only the suspended Circle Inspector, SSVV Nagaraju, as the sole accused despite “overwhelming and compelling circumstantial evidence” that the alleged illegal apprehension, detention at multiple locations, custodial torture, alleged murder, and alleged secret cremation “could not have been planned, executed, coordinated, and sustained by a single officer.”
According to the petition, restricting the FIR to a single accused is “itself a powerful indicator of the intent of the State machinery to protect higher officials and political persons from investigation and accountability.”
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The interventions of political actors, including Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and Opposition Leader YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, in the case, the petition argues, raise “serious and well-founded concerns” over whether the alleged illegal detention and custodial violence were carried out “with the knowledge, approval, or at the behest of persons in positions of political authority.”
“The constitution of a State police SIT, rather than a CBI investigation, reflects an effort to contain the damage and protect those in higher positions of authority from investigation and accountability. I state that these concerns about political influence can only be effectively addressed by an investigation conducted by an agency that is entirely independent of the State government and the State police, namely the CBI, and cannot be addressed by a SIT whose members are serving officers of the State police reporting through a chain of command that ultimately leads to the State Government,” the petition argues.
The petitioner also alleges a systematic effort to destroy and suppress evidence from the earliest stages of the case. It notes that the victim’s mother was deprived of her mobile phone for about 15 days and that, when it was returned, “all data, contacts, messages, photographs, and other information stored therein had been completely and deliberately wiped.”
It further alleges that detaining Sai Krishna at multiple off-the-record locations, including a private hotel, was intended to prevent the creation of official custody records, while the alleged secret cremation of his body at Swargapuri crematorium amounted to “the most catastrophic and irreversible act of evidence destruction.”
The petition argues that the alleged destruction of evidence “demonstrates conclusively” that the cover-up “was planned, coordinated, and executed at a level of the police hierarchy that possessed the authority and resources to sustain it.”
