In the letter, Avinash Reddy said the agency's Superintendent of Police Ram Singh was conducting the probe in a biased manner.
YSRCP MP Avinash Reddy has written to the CBI complaining about a biased probe against him. (Twitter)
In a surprise move, YSRCP MP YS Avinash Reddy on Sunday, 23 July, wrote a letter to the CBI Director Praveen Sood and lodged a complaint stating that the agency’s Superintendent of Police Ram Singh was conducting the probe into the murder of YS Vivekananda Reddy in a biased manner.
In his letter to Sood, Avinash Reddy urged a review of the investigation conducted by Ram Singh based on inconsistent statements of the one of the accused in the case — Dastagiri.
Avinash Reddy is accused No 8 in the CBI charge sheet filed in the murder of Vivekananda Reddy, popularly known as Viveka, who was murdered on the intervening night of 14-15 March, 2019 in the Kadapa district of Andhra Pradesh. His father Bhaskar Reddy, also an accused in the case, is currently in jail.
Avinash Reddy wrote the letter while responding to the second charge sheet filed by the CBI and referred to Vivekananda Reddy’s second marriage in Bengaluru and land settlement matters.
Ram Singh took up investigation in an unilateral manner in violation of norms even before taking charge of the case officially, he contended.
“Ram Singh threatened witnesses to implicate me and my father Bhaskar Reddy and another person Shiva Shankar Reddy,” he said.
Unable to bear the harassment of Ram Singh, Vivekananda Reddy’s personal assistant Krishna Reddy lodged a complaint with the Kadapa Superintendent of Police and in the court, he noted.
Avinash Reddy requested the the central agency to correct the mistakes made by Ram Singh in the investigation and urged the CBI director to nab the real criminals behind Viveka’s murder and bring them to justice.
The CBI arrested Bhaskar Reddy on 16 April in Kadapa for his alleged role in Vivekananda Reddy’s murder case and since then he has been lodged in Chanchalguda prison.
The premier investigating agency also arrested Avinash Reddy in the same case and later released him on bail as he had secured anticipatory bail from the Telangana High Court.
Vivekananda Reddy, one of the brothers of the late Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy, was found murdered at his residence in Pulivendula in Kadapa district, weeks before the Assembly elections in the State.
He is also the uncle of Avinash Reddy as well as Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and YSRCP supremo YS Jagan Mohan Reddy.
Viveka was a member of the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Council in 2009. He served as minister of agriculture and member of the Parliamentary Committee on Science and Technology, Environment & Forest constituted by the Union government in the year 2005.
The Supreme Court, on 18 July, had asked the CBI to file its response to a petition challenging the Telangana High Court’s 31 May order granting pre-arrest bail to Avinash Reddy.
Posting the matter for the week commencing on 11 September, a bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Bela M Trivedi asked the investigating agency to place on record a copy of the charge sheet filed before the Special CBI court in Hyderabad, and the case diary.
“Counsel for CBI seeks time to file a reply. CBI is granted two weeks to file a reply. Along with the reply, the CBI shall also produce the charge sheet filed in the case and submit a copy of the original case files in a sealed cover. Copy of reply of CBI is served on petitioners and core respondents and liberty granted to file their counter-affidavits within three weeks from service,” the bench ordered.
The apex court issued the directive based on a petition by Dr Suneetha Narreddy, Vivekananda Reddy’s daughter.
Challenging the 31 May order of the Telangana High Court granting anticipatory bail to Avinash Reddy — also a one-time Lok Sabha member from Kadapa parliamentary constituency — the petitioner sought an “ex-parte ad interim” stay of the order.
She challenged the high court order on different counts, and also sought an extension of the time given to the CBI for completing the investigation into the larger conspiracy in the alleged murder.
The top court by a 24 April order had directed the CBI to conclude the investigation by 30 June.
Assailing the high court order, Sunitha Narreddy in her petition has said that the high court, after holding a “mini trial and giving findings/making comments on the merits of the prosecution case” virtually accepted the entire case of Avinash Reddy, while disregarding the evidence collected by the CBI which is investigating the case.
Alleging non-cooperation by Avinash Reddy in the investigation of the case, the petition says that he did not appear before the investigating agency on the last three occasions despite notices by the CBI asking him to appear before it.
Suniha Narreddy alleged that Avinash Reddy along with other accused had “successfully” tampered with evidence by “destroying the scene of offence in the presence of the state police and propagated the story that the deceased had died due to a heart attack.”
After the murder, the police registered an FIR in Pulivendula Urban Police Station with crime number 84/2019 initially under Section 174 Cr.Pc based on the complaint of MV Krishna Reddy, who was the Personal Assistant of the deceased and subsequently the Section of law was altered to 302 IPC.
As many as three Special Investigation Teams (SIT) set up by the then-state government probed the case, which was later taken over by the CBI.
The CBI filed a charge sheet in the murder case on 26 October, 2021, and followed it up with a supplementary charge sheet on 31 January, 2022.
The case was initially probed by a special investigation team (SIT) of the State Crime Investigation Department (CID), but was handed over to the CBI in July 2020.
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