HYDERABAD: The Special CBI Court at Hyderabad on Friday admitted a petition for hearing filed by Andhra Pradesh CM YS Jagan Mohan Reddy seeking exemption from appearance before the court and to allow his lawyer to appear on his behalf during the hearings in the alleged illegal assets case. The petition seeking exemption was filed under Section 205 CrPC.
When the petition came up for hearing, CBI court judge BR Madhusudhan Rao raised an objection regarding maintainability of the petition since the petitioner’s earlier pleas seeking exemption from appearance were dismissed by the CBI court in 2014 and 2016, and later his plea challenging the court order was also dismissed.
Senior counsel S Niranjan Reddy, appearing for Jagan, submitted that his client had filed petitions twice. Petitions were filed when he was an opposition leader in the State assembly and sought exemption from appearance before he undertook ‘padayatra’ in the State. However, the court dismissed the plea filed in 2014 saying that the reasons were not rationale.
As for the petition filed in 2016, the then judge has not raised an objection regarding its maintainability and heard the petition before dismissing it. Due to change in circumstances, the petitioner who is now the State Chief Minister has filed the present petition seeking exemption from appearance to discharge his duties. Taking these submissions into consideration, the judge admitted the petition for hearing and posted the matter to September 27.