Telugu Desam Party president and former Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Friday got a temporary relief from the ongoing probe by the Crime Investigation Department of the Andhra Pradesh police into the alleged scam in the acquisition of assigned lands in Amaravati, the present state capital.
The state high court has stayed the CID investigation into the case for a period of four weeks and asked the authorities to submit prima facie evidences in the case before proceeding further. Naidu’s former cabinet colleague P Narayana also got the reprieve in the case.
Senior Supreme Court advocate Sidharth Luthra, who argued in favour of Naidu and former advocate general Dammalapati Srinivas who argued for Narayana, told the court that the CID cases were politically motivated.
They appealed to the court to give a direction to the CID authorities not to go ahead with any measures including interrogation and arrest.
The counsel for Naidu said the GO on giving relaxation to the assigned lands’ sale was issued on February 17, 2016 as part of land pooling exercise and it was sent to Naidu for approval only later.
“Till then, he was not aware of the order. The FIR registered by the CID has not mentioned from where the government had taken land from SC and STs forcibly,” he argued.
The high court asked the CID authorities to show prima facie evidences, if any, to proceed with their investigation against Naidu and Narayana.
The CID officials said they could not reveal the details, since the case was still in the preliminary stages. They asked the court to allow a full-fledged investigation into the case.
After hearing the arguments from both the sides, the high court agreed with the petitioners and granted a stay on the probe.
It may be mentioned that Naidu had moved the state high court challenging the criminal case registered against him by the CID.
He appealed to the court to quash the FIR registered by the CID, accusing him of resorting to criminal conspiracy in cheating the Dalits while acquiring their lands for Amaravati capital.
The CID registered the FIR following a complaint lodged by YSR Congress party MLA Alla Ramakrishna Reddy, who represents Mangalagiri assembly constituency which is part of Amaravati, on February 24.
Naidu was made Accused No. 1 (A-1) in the case, registered under Section 120 B (conspiracy) and Sections 166 (public servant disobeying the law), 167 (public servant framing incorrect document) and 217 (public servant disobeying law with intent to save person from punishment or property from forfeiture) of the Indian Penal Code.
The TDP chief was also booked under SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 and Section 7 of the AP assigned land (Prevention of Transfer) Act, 1977.