HYDERABAD: Justice P Madhavi Devi of Telangana High Court on Monday rejected a plea filed by A Sucharita, seeking relief for her husband Atla Rajashekhar, the accused in the Assistant Engineer (AE) exam question paper leak case. She alleged that the SIT police, who are investigating the case, are subjecting her husband to third-degree torture in order to elicit information after seeing her husband limping in a video that was telecast on all TV channels when the accused were taken into police custody on March 18.
Justice P Madhavi Devi asked A Santosh Kumar if the police are following the rules during the course of the investigation, to which the Special GP replied that all the rules are been strictly followed since the jurisdictional magistrate issued police custody order on March 18.
According to the order, the accused should be submitted to medical examination prior to and after inquiry, which is being followed, and police are not resorting to third-degree means to obtain information from the accused, the Special GP said. He further informed the court that any orders issued by the judge would be in conflict with the orders issued by the jurisdictional magistrate, and that if the petitioner needed relief, she should go to the jurisdictional magistrate rather than the High Court.
After hearing the arguments, the judge stated that there is no need to pass any orders on the petitioner’s plea because the jurisdictional magistrate has already issued orders, directing the SIT to subject the accused to medical examination, which is currently being carried out.
In the writ petition, the petitioner asked the SIT to refrain from adopting third-degree methods during questioning, to take her husband to a government hospital for a health check, and to preserve CCTV video of the interview. The court postponed the writ petition to Tuesday for further instructions.