An uneasy calm is prevailing in the Telugu Desam Party camp, as the Supreme Court is set to take up the special leave petition of party president and former Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu seeking to quash the skill development scam case filed by the Crime Investigation Department.
A division bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justice Aniruddha Bose and Justice Bela M Trivedi has the listed Naidu’s case as 63rd in the list. It would mean the case is last on the priority list of the SC and will come up only as the last case of the day.
Though Naidu’s counsel and senior Supreme Court judge Siddharth Luthra has put in all the efforts to see that Naidu’s quash petition comes up early, but the registry has pushed it down.
So, Naidu has to wait till evening to see what is going to happen to his petition. Even the other cases on the list are delayed, then there is every possibility of the case getting postponed to some other date.
Moreover, the Jagan government has filed a caveat petition in the Supreme Court requesting that its version has to be heard before the bench takes up Naidu’s SLP. However, the caveat petition has to be filed before the filing of the SLP; as such, the SC might not take it up, sources said.
However, the SC might ask for a counter-affidavit from the Crime Investigation Department to hear its version before taking the decision on Naidu’s SLP.
While Naidu’s lawyers are arguing that the case can be struck down on the basis of Section 17 (A) of the Criminal Procedure Code which calls for the Governor’s permission before the CID registered an FIR, the CID is going to argue that there is no need for taking any permission when the evidence is very clear about Naidu’s role.
“In any case, Naidu might not get immediate relief in the Supreme Court. It might take at least five to six days before the SC grants any relief to the TDP chief,” sources said.