VIJAYAWADA: The High Court of Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday reserved its verdict on the bail petition filed by former minister and TDP deputy floor leader in the Assembly Kinjarapu Atchannaidu, who was arrested in the ESI scam.
After the arguments concluded, Justice Ch Manavendranath Rai adjourned the case hearing to Friday (August 28).
Supreme Court senior advocate Sidharth Luthra, the counsel for Atchannaidu, said it has been 73 days since the TDP legislator was arrested.
“He has been suffering from ill health and now he is also infected with coronavirus. He has been fully cooperating in the case investigation. Since another accused (A3) has not been arrested so far, keeping Atchannaidu in detention is not proper,” he argued.
However, objecting to it, Advocate General S Sriram argued that in-depth investigation has to be carried out in the multi-crore scam. Till date, 12 witnesses have been questioned and another 60 more witnesses have to be questioned and A3 is not yet arrested. Informing the court that ACB will file a charge-sheet by September first week, he said, “Atchannaidu is a powerful and influential person, who can sway witnesses”.On the other hand, the High Court granted conditional bail to Karthik, A14 in the scam.