HYDERABAD: The special CBI court on Friday granted an exemption to Jagan from his appearance before it during the case hearing pertaining to assets case. Jagan was away in Kadapa to file his nomination papers.
The special court passed this order in an interim application filed by Jagan’s counsel seeking to grant exemption from appearance in the case in view of filing of nomination papers to the coming assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh.
Other accused in the case - IAS officer Y Srilakshmi, former minister and MLA P Sabita Reddy, former MP YV Subba Reddy, Penna Pratap Reddy, Indu Syam Prasad Reddy, A Venkatrami Reddy and others appeared before the court. The matter was posted to next Friday for further hearing.
Meanwhile the Telangana High Court has clarified that its earlier orders (dated Jan 1, 2019) of quashing the cases registered against the petitioners - senior IAS officers Adityanath Das and BP Acharya by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) were applicable only to the two officers who were accused in the cases of land allotments to Hetero and Arabindo and water allocation to India Cements episodes of Jagan’s disproportionate assets case. Recently, principal special judge for CBI cases BR Madhusudhan Rao addressed a letter to the High Court Registrar (Judicial) seeking clarification of orders passed by the high court on Jan 21 this year in the case.
When the said letter was placed in the form of a petition before Justice Siva Sankara Rao on Wednesday, the judge after perusing the letter of the CBI court, has passed revised orders saying that his earlier orders were applicable only to the petitioners Das and Acharya The High Court made it clear to the special CBI Court that it can go ahead with the other accused. Justice Rao suggested to the CBI court to remove names of the petitioners officers from the case.