The Supreme Court on June 9 agreed to hear on June 13 an appeal against the Telangana High Court decision to grant anticipatory bail to Lok Sabha MP Y.S. Avinash Reddy in connection with the murder of former Andhra Pradesh Minister Y.S. Vivekananda Reddy in 2019.
Appearing before a Vacation Bench led by Justice Aniruddha Bose, senior advocate Siddharth Luthra, appearing for Suneetha Narreddy, the daughter of Vivekananda Reddy, said Avinash has refused to join the CBI probe despite repeated notices to appear for questioning by the central agency.
Mr. Luthra submitted that the Telangana High Court held a “mini-trial” and made comments on the merits of the prosecution case “virtually accepting” Avinash’s narrative while “disregarding the evidence collected by the CBI”, completely in contravention of the law laid down by the apex court that merits of the case cannot be discussed while hearing a bail plea.
“We want the anticipatory bail to be dismissed,” Mr. Luthra submitted.
The petition said the “CBI wanted to arrest him, however, they were unable to do so and were obstructed by him and his large number of his supporters/goons who had camped outside the hospital, where he took shelter to avoid arrest on the pretext of his mother’s alleged health issues”.
The petition said Avinash along with other accused had destroyed the scene of offence in the presence of the State Police and had propagated the story that the deceased had died due to a heart attack.
Mr. Luthra said the crime was “cold-blooded murder”.
The petition said Avinash was a “sitting Member of Parliament from the ruling party in Andhra Pradesh, and he along with other accused, with the aid of the State machinery and powerful people in the current ruling party was influencing the investigation, and has been consistently threatening and influencing witnesses”.
The petition said the investigation had been moved out of Andhra Pradesh to Telangana and transferred to the CBI, which is investigating the larger conspiracy.
Before the Telangana High Court, the CBI Special Public Prosecutor had submitted that an IPDR analysis of Avinash’s mobile phone revealed that “he was active on WhatsApp and had exchanged voice calls just before the murder of Y.S. Vivekananda Reddy… further, the location of mobile phone of one of the assailants namely, Y Sunil Yadav, was found inside the house of Y.S. Avinash Reddy before and after the commission of murder and particularly at 1.58 a.m. on March 15, 2019”.
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The CBI had alleged that “further investigation on the larger conspiracy aspect revealed that Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, the present Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, had been informed about the death of Y.S. Vivekananda Reddy in the early hours of March 15, 2019, way before the information about the death broke out…”
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