HYDERABAD: In a significant development in the attack on YSRC president YS Jagan Mohan Reddy at Visakhapatnam airport on October 25, a division bench of the Hyderabad High Court on Tuesday directed the Andhra Pradesh police not to file the case charge sheet before the lower court concerned until further orders.
While directing the Centre and the State government to place full details of the case before the court, the bench issued notices to the secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs, principal secretary, home, AP, DGP, Visakhapatnam city police commissioner, 5 town SHO, Telangana secretary, (home) and TS DGP to respond. Making it clear that the petitions filed before it would not become an obstacle to the ongoing SIT probe into the incident, the bench directed the SIT officials to submit the report in a sealed cover on the progress made in the investigation by next date of case hearing.
The bench comprising Chief Justice TBN Radhakrishnan and Justice SV Bhatt was passing this order in the petition filed by Jagan seeking probe into the attack on him by any appropriate independent agency not under the control of AP government. When the matter came up for hearing, AP Advocate General Dammalapati Srinivas placed the status report of the SIT before the court. After perusing the report, the bench posed some questions to clear its doubts about the contents mentioned in the report. Senior counsel CV Mohan Reddy, appearing for Jagan, that the statements made by the state chief minister and DGP would influence the SIT probe.
Disputing with the above submission, AP AG said that the chief minister had tried to explain the facts to the people on the above incident as there was scope for law and order problem. In fact, there were largescale protests by the opposition party immediately after the incident, he noted. After hearing both sides, the bench said that there was a need to have an in-depth hearing of the case. The bench issued notices to all the respondents except Naidu. The bench wondered at non-functioning of some of the CCTV cameras at the airport. While impleading the CISF IG and assistant commandant, Visakhapatnam airport’s director, chief security officer and manager of Airport Authority of India as respondents to the case, the bench issued notices to them for an explanation. The case was adjourned for hearing by two weeks.