VIJAYAWADA: The ACB court said there is prima facie material that TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu, in pursuance of criminal conspiracy, while holding his office as public servant colluded with others and misappropriated Rs 279 crores by corrupt and illegal methods thereby causing huge loss to the government exchequer.
The court had remanded the former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu to 14 days judicial custody in connection with the alleged AP State Skill Development Corporation (APSSDC) scam.
Special judge for SPE and ACB Cases BSV Himabindu, who heard the arguments of Naidu represented by senior counsel Siddhartha Luthra and CID represented by additional advocate general Ponnavolu Sudhakar Reddy on Sunday, remanded Naidu to judicial custody on Sunday.
There is prima facie material to suffice the nexus of Naidu (Accused no 37 in the case) with the other accused and representatives of shell companies.
Similarly, there is prima facie sufficient material eliciting the role of Naidu in approval of Skill Development Project and its activities to attract the offences under Section 409 of IPC and Sections 13 (2) r/w 13 (1) (c) and (d) of Prevention of Corruption Act, the court said.
Naidu's counsel Luthra argued that inclusion of Naidu in the case under provisions of PC Act is entirely illegal. Luthra also informed the court that the arrest of Naidu was not informed to the competent authority (Governor in this case). The court, however, did not find merit in it.
The court said that the offence alleged against Naidu are under PC Act, 1988 involving criminal misappropriation of office as public servant and other substantial offences under Section 418, 420, 465, 468, 471, 409, 201 and 109 r/w 120-b of IPC attracting imprisonment which may extend to 10 years and fine.
Siddhartha Luthra also contended that the investigation agency did not follow the provisions of Sec 41 CrPC. The court said the allegations against Naidu for which his remand is sought is not covered under Section 41-A CrPC.
On the arguments of Siddharth Luthra that the arrest arose out of political vendetta, the court said that the ground itself does not rule out the allegations against the accused taking into consideration the other articulating material on record.
Judge Himabindu said the investigating agency along with the remand report enclosed the reasons warranting the arrest of the accused in view of severity of the offence alleged against him which are all cognisable in nature.
"Therefore, considering the nature of allegations (against Naidu) bearing social ramification, amount of alleged misappropriation to the government exchequer which is about Rs 279 crore, stage of investigation, apprehension of the investigating agency as to interference of the accused with investigation and other reasons mentioned in the remand report, this court is of the opinion that there are reasonable grounds to remand the accused to judicial custody,'' the order read.
Siddharth Luthra also argued that the CID has no jurisdiction to investigate the case under PC Act and only Anti-Corruption Bureau is the authorised agency can investigate into the case and pleaded that the entire crime attributed to Naidu is without any legal sanctity.
AAG P Sudhakar Reddy relied on the high court judgment in criminal petition between Gogineni Ramanjaneyulu and State of AP where in it was held that there is no specific bar as per the Section 17 of PC Act warranting only ACB to investigate the matters of PC Act and also upheld the declaration of CID police station at Mangalagiri as police station over the entire State.
"Accordingly, there is no embargo on the CID officials to investigate the offences under PC Act,'' the court said.