VIJAYAWADA: The Andhra Pradesh High Court on Monday issued key interim orders in the sensational liquor case, staying portions of the ACB Special Court’s ruling that had granted default bail to three accused on Saturday.
Challenging the ACB Court’s order granting bail to Balaji Govindappa, Kaluva Dhanunjaya Reddy, and Pellakuru Krishna Mohan Reddy, the investigation agency Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the sensational multi-crore liquor scam filed a House motion petition with the High Court on Sunday.
The SIT also challenged the August 23 office memorandum of the ACB Court, which highlighted deficiencies in the chargesheet, and sought interim suspension of both rulings.
While hearing the petition, Justice Dr Venkata Jyothirmayi Pratap stayed the implementation of the ACB court’s office memorandum dated August 23, which had pointed out alleged lapses in the SIT’s chargesheet. The High Court also stayed parts of the September 6 ACB Court’s judgment that were based on that memorandum.
While observing that the arguments of three accused who were released on default bail need to be heard, the court issued notices to them. Notices were also served on another accused, Bune Chanakya, following the SIT’s plea to prevent the ACB court from granting him default bail. The court permitted the SIT to serve notices personally to all four accused and adjourned the matter to September 11 for further hearing.
Senior advocate Siddharth Luthra, appearing for the SIT along with Advocate General Dammalapati Srinivas and Public Prosecutor Menda Lakshminarayana, contended that despite timely filing of the main chargesheet and supplementary chargesheet, the ACB Court had wrongly treated them as incomplete and granted default bail.
Luthra further argued that the ACB court relied on the Supreme Court’s earlier ruling in the Reetu Chhabria case, which was subsequently set aside in the Ruby Chhabria case. He said default bail was wrongly granted on the basis of a judgment no longer in force.
He further submitted that the lapses pointed out by the ACB Court were procedural steps meant to be carried out by the court itself and not grounds to penalise the prosecution. “The SIT had filed all relevant documents and remand reports within the time limit, and the ACB Court had itself extended the accused’s remand under Section 309 CrPC. Once remand extensions are valid, default bail under Section 167 CrPC cannot be granted,” Luthra argued.
The judge, after hearing the submissions, commented that the issue required a deeper probe and stayed the ACB Court’s memorandum and related portions of its order.
The High Court posted the matter for hearing on September 11.