The Central Bureau of Investigation on Monday registered a First Information Report (FIR) against 16 persons who posted alleged derogatory postings against the Andhra Pradesh high court judges and their judgements.
The CBI took up the case from the state CID, following a direction from the state high court, which expressed unhappiness over the investigation done by the CID authorities, based on a complaint lodged by the registrar general of the court.
It may be mentioned that a division bench of Andhra Pradesh high court, comprising Justice Rakesh Kumar and Justice J Uma Devi, had ordered a CBI probe in the matter on October 12 observing that the CID had failed to take appropriate action against those who had made derogatory comments against the judiciary.
The CBI filed a common FIR, based on 12 different FIRs registered by the CID between April and July.
In all, 16 persons were named in the FIR and booked under various sections of IPC including section 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on ground of religion, race, residence, language etc), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace), 505 (inciting a community), 506 (criminal intimidation) and section 67 of Information Technology Act.
However, the accused named in the FIR do not include prominent leaders of YSRC, including assembly speaker Tammineni Sitaram, who questioned the judiciary of being partial against the YSRC government.
The YSRC leaders are saying that the CBI probe should unearth the reasons behind these comments in the social media. They say people were the real judges in the democracy.