The Telangana High Court said, “The criminal petition is devoid of merit.”
N Chandrababu Naidu
In a huge setback to former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, the Telangana High Court dismissed his petition to quash the FIR against him in connection with the multi-crore Skill Development scam.
Naidu will now approach the Supreme Court for relief.
Meanwhile, the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) court has extended the TDP chief’s remand is due to end on 24 September.
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Both sides had drawn big guns with Harish Salve virtually appearing for Naidu while Mukul Rohtagi argued for AP CID in the court of Justice K Sreenivasa Reddy. Naidu’s lawyers had said prior sanction was required before arrest under this particular section and had pleaded for the FIR to be quashed.
Today, in a 68-page-long judgement, the court said, “The criminal petition is devoid of merit and is accordingly dismissed and the consequential reliefs sought are dismissed.”
It also observed, “Save in exceptional cases where non-interference would result in a miscarriage of justice the court and the judicial process should not interfere at the stage of investigation of offences.”
Before quashing the petition, the judge further observed, “The investigating agency pursuant to the registration of crime in the year 2021 examined as many as more than 140 witnesses and collected documents to the tune of more than 4,000. Profligacy is such an esoteric subject that investigation has to be carried out with utmost proficiency by professionals. At this stage where the investigation is on the fulcrum of attaining finality, this court is not inclined to interfere with the impugned proceedings.”
Meanwhile, TDP MLAs continued to disrupt the proceedings of the Assembly. Telugu actor and Naidu’s brother-in-law today resorted to blowing a whistle loudly in order to disrupt the Assembly. Other TDP MLAs raised slogans and tore papers. Speaker suspended K Atchen Naidu and B Ashok for the entire session.
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