The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it will not restrain the trial court from dealing with a plea seeking police custody of former Andhra Pradesh chief minister and TDP leader N Chandrababu Naidu as it announced a new bench will hear his petition for quashing the FIR in the alleged Rs 371 crore scam in the state’s Skill Development Corporation on October 3.
The plea by Naidu, who was arrested in the case on September 9, came up before two benches in the top court but without any effective hearing. It initially it came up before the designated bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and SVN Bhatti, but the latter recused himself from hearing the matter.
Justice Khanna said, “My brother has little difficulty in hearing this matter. We are directing it to be listed before another bench next week.” Senior advocate Siddharth Luthra, appearing for the TDP leader, then rushed to the bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud for urgent hearing on Naidu’s plea keeping in mind the upcoming holiday.
The top court, which is closing on September 28, will resume functioning on October 3. We have some unorthodox requests to make as Justice Bhatti recused from hearing. I did not disturb this bench as it was in the midst of a hearing, Luthra said while mentioning the case before the CJI-led bench in the evening.
We will list it before an appropriate bench on October 3, Justice Chandrachud said. The senior lawyer told the court the investigating agency is pressing for police custody of the former chief minister and requested the bench to prevent it from doing so.
He also contended police custody cannot be sought after the first 15 days of arrest, according to a provision of the Code of Criminal Procedure. “We will not restrain the trial judge from dealing with this, the CJI said during a brief hearing.
Luthra said since the matter was listed before the top court, the counsel for Naidu did not press his bail application before the trial court. Now that Justice Bhatti has recused himself from hearing, we are in a predicament as the CID will, in the meanwhile, press its application for custody.
Luthra said the FIR against Naidu cannot be sustained in the eyes of law as no prior sanction, as provided for under Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act, was obtained by the investigators.
Senior advocate Ranjit Kumar, appearing for Andhra Pradesh, opposed Naidu’s plea, saying the case pertained to a scam worth crores of rupees and the alleged offence took place before the 2018 amendment that introduced Section 17A in the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act.
