VIJAYAWADA: The Andhra Pradesh High Court dismissed a petition filed by TDP leader JC Prabhakar Reddy, his wife Uma Reddy and son Asmit Reddy to combine separate FIRs against them, and treat them as a single case.
In her judgement, Justice K Vijayalakshmi, who recently heard the petitions filed by Prabahakar Reddy’s family, made it clear that the FIRs registered in different police stations cannot be combined and treated as one since each case is regarding different crimes and allegations. People involved and their role in the cases differ too. Further, the judge pointed out that vehicles related to the cases were also different.
Based on the complaint that Prabhakar Reddy and others purchased old vehicles from Ashok Leyaland company and falsely registered them as BS-IV variants before selling them by using forged documents, 46 different cases were registered against them in different police stations.
JC and his family urged the High Court to treat all the 46 cases as a single case. Senior advocate V Venkataramana appeared on behalf the petitioners while Advocate General S Sriram represented the state.
The judge, citing the judgement given by the High Court in Zakir Hussain vs the State of Andhra Pradesh (undivided), said if crimes and incidents pertaining to the same subject are different then multiple FIRs can be registered. She dismissed the petitioners’ argument that Article 20(2) was violated in their case.