The Andhra Pradesh High Court Monday asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) joint director, heading the probe into the alleged illegal assets of YSR Congress Party leader Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy and other high-profile cases, to explain why he made several phone calls to the media.
A division bench of acting Chief Justice P.K. Ghose and Justice Praveen Kumar was hearing a public interest litigation on the phone calls made by the CBI official.
Questioning the need for the calls made by V.V. Lakshminarayana to journalists of some media houses, the court asked him to submit his explanation by July 9.
Petitioner Bhavanam Bhushan alleged that the CBI joint director has been calling reporters of two media houses Eenadu and Andhra Jyothi.
The union home secretary, the BSNL, Eenadu and Andhra Jyothi are the respondents in the case.
The YSR COngress Party last month made public Call Data Records (CDRs) of Lakshminarayana and his friend Vasireddy Chandrabala.
While accusing the CBI official of hatching a conspiracy against Jaganmohan Reddy, the party claimed that he made calls to journalists of newspapers and television channels which were running a vilification campaign against its leader.
The YSR Congress has also criticised the CBI official for making several calls to Chandrabala, who in turn was allegedly in touch with managing director of a media group and a top police official.
The police last week booked a case against reporter of Sakshi, a Telugu daily owned by Jaganmohan Reddy, and a police inspector for making public the call details of Chandrabala, who is also an employee of IBM.
Another case was booked on the complaint of Lakshminarayana. The Crime Investigation Department (CID) is probing both the cases.
The Cyberabad police Monday submitted a report to the state human rights commission on the call details of Chandrabala.