Telugu Desam Party general secretary Nara Lokesh, who has been camping in New Delhi for the last 15 days on the pretext of lobbying with the legal experts to bail out his father and TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu in the skill development scam, remained elusive for the Crime Investigation Department officials of the Andhra Pradesh police on Friday.
Advocate general Sriram Subrahmanyam categorically told the state high court that the CID police had no immediate plans to arrest Lokesh, but would only question him after serving him due notice under Section 41-A of the Criminal Procedure Code in connection with the Amaravati inner ring road scam.
The A-G told the court that if at all the CID had to arrest Lokesh for not cooperating with it in the investigation, it would take prior permission of the court.
As a result, the high court dismissed Lokesh’s petition in the case and directed him to cooperate with the investigation agency in the probe.
Following the high court direction, the officials from the CID flew down to Delhi and started looking for Lokesh. But to their surprise, he was not available to them at his party office or camp office in the national capital.
“Despite the high court directions, Lokesh tried to avoid the CID officials, who went all the way to New Delhi to serve him the notices in the inner ring road case. We have a suspicion that he may be deliberately evading the receipt of notices,” a government spokesperson said.
If Lokesh continues to remain unavailable to the CID authorities, they are likely to arrest him whenever they find him, after informing the high court, sources said.
Meanwhile, the high court deferred Lokesh’s lunch motion petition seeking anticipatory bail in the skill development case to October 4. It asked the CID police not to arrest him till the case is disposed of.
In another petition, the high court deferred his plea for anticipatory bail in the AP Fibernet case, too, to October 4.