VIJAYAWADA: The Andhra Pradesh High Court on Thursday struck down the First Information Report (FIR) filed by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) against former Additional Advocate General Dammalapati Srinivas and others in the alleged Amaravati land scam. The High Court, however, rejected Dammalapati’s plea for compensation for subjecting him to agony by the ACB by registering a false complaint against him.
Justice C Manavendranath Roy of the High Court, who heard the petitions filed by Dammalapati and those named in the case, including his wife Nagamani, relatives N Sitarama Raju, N Lakshminarayana and others to strike down the case filed by the ACB, said Dammalapati, however, has the liberty to file a separate plea seeking compensation and also expenses.Justice Manavendranath Roy observed that an Additional AG does not hold any constitutional position and does not play any role in deciding the location of capital of a State.
Hence, there was no scope for the former Additional AG to make public any information related to the location of State capital, Justice Manavendranath Roy said and added that it was wrong to say that the relatives of the petitioner purchased lands in Amaravati based on the information provided by the latter.
Justice Manavendranath Roy said the ACB could not provide any evidence in support of the charges it made against Dammalapati. The Judge also said the location of capital was not a secret as there was news that Amaravati might be the State capital from June, 2014 itself. The court also observed that asset acquisition is a right provided by the Constitution and every citizen of the country has the right to acquire property.
The court made it clear that no offence could be attributed to the petitioners who had acquired lands as it was not a crime to purchase lands from those who were selling them voluntarily. It also observed that none of those who had sold the lands were at loss and there was no conspiracy behind the purchase of lands by the petitioners.
Making it clear that the petitioners could not be prosecuted under Section 420 (cheating) of the IPC or under the Prevention of Corruption Act, the court said the FIR registered by the ACB was against the basic criminal justice system and quashed it.
It may be recalled that the ACB filed the FIR against Dammalapati and others in the alleged Amaravati land scam on September 20, 2020. Dammalapati moved an urgent house motion petition then and got gag orders issued against the media not to publish the content of the FIR.
The State government moved a Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court and later withdrew the same with a plea that it would move the HC again. Allowing the plea, the Supreme Court directed the HC to dispose of the petition in four weeks. Following this, Dammalapati and others filed petitions seeking striking down of the FIR.
No compensation
The High Court rejected the plea of Dammalapati Srinivas for compensation for subjecting him to agony by the ACB by registering a false complaint against him. He has the liberty to file a separate plea seeking compensation, the HC said