HYDERABAD: In yet another setback to YSR Congress president and opposition leader in AP Assembly YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, the special CBI court on Monday dismissed his petition seeking exemption from appearance before the court on further dates and hearings in the illegal assets case for the next six months in view of his proposed padayatra in AP from November 2. As a consequence of the verdict, Jagan should appear before the CBI court during hearing on every Friday.
In August, the HC had set aside a petition filed by Jagan seeking exemption from appearing before the special CBI Court. The petitioner brought up the ‘padayatra’ issue to avoid appearance before the trial court, the court remarked. While dismissing the petition, the High Court had made it clear that the petitioner could seek permission from the trial court by showing the reasons and that the latter would use its discretionary powers with regard to granting exemption. Jagan then moved the CBI court with a plea for grant of exemption.
During the course of hearing before the CBI court earlier, the counsels for CBI and ED had strongly opposed grant of exemption to the petitioner saying that the law did not permit grant of exemption for six months. In fact, the petitioner’s plea was not maintainable and was intended to cause delay in the hearing. The petitioner could seek exemption for any particular day by showing proper reasons. Even HC had refused to grant exemption to the accused-petitioner and made it clear that his appearance before the court was must, they recalled.
At one stage, the petitioner’s counsel submitted that his client has been appearing before the court regularly though he had a provision in law for not appearing before the court during every hearing. Reacting to this, the special CBI court questioned as to why the petitioner appeared before the court when he had got a provision not to attend.