In a major blow to the Cyberabad police, a local ACB court has rejected the police plea seeking remand of three persons, who allegedly tried to poach four Members of Legislative Assembly of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS).
The judge rejected the police plea citing lack of evidence and asked them to release the three persons — Ramachandra Bharati alias Satish Sharma of Delhi, Nanda Kumar of Hyderabad and Simhayaji Swamy of Tirupati (Andhra Pradesh) immediately.
After rejection of their plea on Thursday, the Cyberabad police filed a writ petition in the high court on Friday and sought remand of the three accused in the TRS MLAs’ bribery case.
In its petition earlier, the Cyberabad police, who arrested three persons alleged of being BJP’s agents from a farmhouse at Moinabad, outskirts of Hyderabad on Wednesday night for allegedly trying to lure four TRs MLAs into BJP fold by offering them crores of rupees of cash and other benefits, sought judicial remand.
Those arrested were produced before the ACB court judge’s residence at Saroornagar.
The judge observed that the Prevention of Corruption Act did not apply in the case as there was no evidence of bribe money.
Following the order by the judge, the police released all the accused after serving them notices under section 41 of CrPC to appear before the investigation officer for questioning.
Police had registered a First Information Report (FIR) against the three persons on a complaint by one of the MLAs Pilot Rohit Reddy.
The case was registered under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 120 B (criminal conspiracy), 171-B (bribery) read with 171-E (punishment of bribery), 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation) read with 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) and section 8 of Prevention of the Corruption Act.
In his complaint, Rohit said that the accused offered him an amount of Rs 100 crore.
They also offered to give central government civil contract works and other high central government positions for monetary benefits and lured him to join the BJP, Rohit alleged.
A writ petition was filed by the BJP also in the high court in the TRS MLAs poaching case, which was been posted for Monday hearing.
In his petition filed on Thursday, BJP General Secretary G Premendar Reddy urged the court to hand over the police probe into the allegation that the saffron party sought to buy TRS MLAs to either the CBI or Sitting HC judge or a special investigation team.
In his plea before the High court, he said: “We do not have any faith in the state police in this case.”
