The Telangana High Court on Wednesday (May 31) granted conditional anticipatory bail Kadapa MP Y.S. Avinash Reddy of YSRCP whom the CBI wanted for custodial interrogation in the murder case of Y.S. Vivekananda Reddy.
Justice M. Laxman of the vacation court bench, who pronounced the order in the criminal petition filed by the MP having heard it consecutively for two days, directed the MP to appear before CBI every Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. till June end. The CBI, in its investigation done so far, did not claim about interference of the MP in the probe. The investigators did not make any allegation about tampering of evidence and threatening the witnesses by the MP, except the allegation about destruction of evidence
“No direct evidence is available against the petitioner to prove his participation in larger conspiracy,”, the judge said in the order. The investigators tried to bank on the improved cases of the witnesses and the approver, Justice M. Laxman noted. The CBI claimed that even after disturbance of the crime scene, the MP and the fifth accused constantly supervised registration of the case and attempted to control issuance of First Information Report.
But the FIR contents disclose multiple injuries on the victim’s body. Still the investigating officer did not register case under section 302 (murder) of Indian Penal Code but invoked section 174 of Criminal Procedure Code. This was the fault of the investigating officer and cannot be attributed to the MP’s influence, the judge said.
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The CBI cited recovery of the axe used by the accused in the murder and details about the trail of ₹4 crore which was allegedly distributed among the accused as the grounds for custodial interrogation. “It is most unfortunate that the CBI failed to recover such amount from the first, second and third accused. The amount recovered from Munna is also under doubtful circumstances,” the order said.
