Telugu Desam Party official spokesman in Andhra Pradesh Kommareddy Pattabhi Ram, who was booked for abusing YSR Congress party president and chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy in filthy language, managed to get away under the court protection.
Pattabhi, who fled to Maldives along with family within a couple of days after being granted bail by the state high court to avoid being arrested by the police again in a different case, got yet another relief from a local court in Vijayawada on Thursday.
The court dismissed a petition of the state government seeking police custody of Pattabhi for questioning.
It agreed with the contention of Pattabhi’s lawyers that he had already been granted bail by the state high court and therefore, it is not appropriate to seek him into police custody.
The government’s lawyer argued that it was essential to give Pattabhi to police custody to question him on why he had made such remarks against the chief minister and who were actually behind him.
Pattabhi’s counsel, however, said it was not against the law to seek his police custody at this stage of the case. He also pointed out that the comments made by Pattabhi were not directed at the chief minister.
After listening to the arguments of both the sides, the Vijayawada court dismissed the petition of the police seeking Pattabhi’s custody.
Pattabhi was arrested by the police for abusing Jagan and later released from Rajahmundry jail following a high court order on Saturday.
He went incommunicado later and his family members suspected that he might have been arrested by the police in some other case.
But the police denied such rumours and said they had not arrested him. Later, it was found that Pattabhi had left for Male along with his family and the pictures of him at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad surfaced in the social media.
A couple of days ago, Pattabhi released a video of him saying that he had gone out with family for peace and that he would continue to fight against the Jagan Mohan Reddy government.