HYDERABAD: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday informed the Special CBI Court that no further investigation was required in the YS Vivekananda Reddy murder case and that a comprehensive probe had already been completed.
In detailed written arguments filed on Friday, the agency sought dismissal of the petition filed by N Sunitha, who had requested further investigation, and urged the court to expedite the trial.
The CBI said Sunitha’s allegations regarding text messages exchanged between Kiran Yadav and Arjun Reddy were unfounded. According to the agency, the messages that appeared in the mobile extraction report at 1.42 am on March 15, 2019, were actually sent at 7.12 am Indian Standard Time. The discrepancy arose because the extraction report displayed the time in UTC format, requiring the addition of five hours and thirty minutes.
The agency stated that both Kiran Yadav and Arjun Reddy were questioned and confirmed that the messages were sent in the morning, not on the night of the murder. A forensic expert from the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL), New Delhi, also supported this conclusion. Call Detail Records (CDRs) reportedly corroborated the same timeline.
The CBI further stated that repeated petitions filed by Sunitha in various courts, including the Telangana High Court, were causing delays in the trial and postponing the framing of charges. Citing Supreme Court directions, the agency said that the trial should proceed swiftly after the filing of supplementary chargesheets.
Warning that prolonged delays could adversely affect the examination of key witnesses and preservation of evidence, the CBI maintained that a supplementary final report under Section 173(8) CrPC had already been filed and taken cognizance of by the court, making any further investigation legally unwarranted.