VIJAYAWADA : The Andhra Pradesh High Court on Thursday issued interim orders granting conditional anticipatory bail to Macherla MLA Pinnelli Ramakrishna Reddy and directed the officials concerned not to arrest or take any action against him till June 6.
The conditional anticipatory bail was also granted to TDP and YSRC candidates for Tadipatri Assembly constituency JC Asmith Reddy and Kethireddy Pedda Reddy respectively, YSRC nominee for Narasaraopeta Assembly constituency Gopireddy Srinivas Reddy, and TDP pick for Denduluru Assembly constituency Chintamaneni Prabhakar. All of them had filed anticipatory bail petitions in the High Court.
While hearing their pleas, the court directed the officials concerned not to take any action against candidates of both the ruling and the Opposition parties till June 6. The police department was directed to file counters with full details in all the anticipatory bail petitions filed by the candidates.
In the interim order, Justice Pratapa Venkata Jyothirmai directed the petitioners not to stay in the constituencies from where they have contested the elections till the counting is concluded. Further, they were instructed not to move with more than four people and not to resort to any unlawful activity. The court said police are working under the Election Commission at present and have to constantly monitor the petitioners. Further hearing in the case was adjourned to June 6.
Appearing for Pinnelli Ramakrishna Reddy, advocate Niranjan Reddy argued that the sections under which the case was booked were bailable, and hence the legislator should be granted anticipatory bail.
Further, Niranjan Reddy pointed out that as per the guidelines issued by the Supreme Court in Arnesh Kumar’s case, notices must be served to the accused under Section 41A in cases where punishment is less than seven years of imprisonment.
Citing the ECI’s statement that Pinnelli will be arrested wherever he might be, the petitioner’s counsel said the poll panel was acting as if it were above the Supreme Court, which was never seen in the past. Stating that eight police teams from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana were on the lookout for Pinnelli and his family members, the advocate urged the court to provide security to the MLA from arrest. He contended that if the candidate is arrested, he will not be able to appoint his agents on counting day and will suffer a loss. Similar arguments were made by the counsel of other petitioners too.
Intervening, public prosecutor Nagi Reddy said if the petitioners are granted anticipatory bail, similar incidents of violence that were reported on May 13 might recur. Hence, conditions have to be set if the anticipatory bail is to be granted and petitioners have to be made responsible for any such incidents that might happen, he added.
After hearing arguments from both sides, the High Court issued interim orders granting conditional anticipatory bail to the petitioners and adjourned the case hearing to June 6.
Court’s directives to contestants
Justice Pratapa Venkata Jyothirmai directed all the petitioners not to make any attempt to influence witnesses or intervene in the investigation of the cases registered against them.