Telangana HC grants bail to 3 accused in TRS MLAs ‘poaching’ case
A high court bench headed by Justice Sumalatha asked the accused – Ramachandra Bharati from Faridabad, Nanda Kumar from Hyderabad and Simhayaji Swamy from Tirupati – to submit a personal bond for ₹3 lakh each, besides two sureties.
Hyderabad The Telangana high court on Thursday granted conditional bail to all three persons accused in the alleged attempt to poach four Telangana Rashtra Samithi MLAs into the Bharatiya Janata Party.
A high court bench headed by Justice Sumalatha asked the accused – Ramachandra Bharati from Faridabad, Nanda Kumar from Hyderabad and Simhayaji Swamy from Tirupati – to submit a personal bond for ₹3 lakh each, besides two sureties.
The judge also asked the accused to surrender their passports to the special investigation team (SIT) probing the case and not to leave Hyderabad. She also asked them to appear before the SIT on every Monday to sign the register.
The three accused were caught red-handed by the Cyberabad police in a sting operation at a farmhouse on the outskirts of Hyderabad on October 26, while they were allegedly trying to lure the four TRS MLAs – Pilot Rohit Reddy, Guvvala Balaraju, B Harshavardhan Reddy and Rega Kantha Rao into the BJP by offering huge money, besides posts and contracts.
The accused were arrested and booked under Section 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 171-B r/w 171-E 506 r/w 34 (offering bribe for electoral gains) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 8 of Prevention of Corruption Act-1988.
They were produced before the local ACB court on October 27, but were let out on bail on the ground that they were not given notices under Section 41-A of the Criminal Procedure Code. However, they were arrested again a day later a high court order. They have since been lodged in the Chanchalguda central prison in Hyderabad.
On November 9, the Telangana government constituted a seven-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by Hyderabad police commissioner C V Anand to probe into the case.
During the course of investigation, the SIT found that the three accused were in touch with BJP national general secretary (organisation) B L Santosh, Bharat Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS) founder Tushar Vellapally, Dr Jaggu Swamy of Amritha Institute in Kerala and a senior lawyer B Srinvas from Karimnagar.
On November 16, the SIT issued notices to these four people to appear before the investigating officer on November 21 for questioning. Except Srinivas, the other three did not turn up.
Santosh challenged the notices in the Telangana high court on November 23, but the court rejected his plea and asked him to appear before the SIT, though it directed that he shall not be arrested.
Acting on a review petition by Santosh again last week, the high court granted stay on the notice served on Santosh, on the ground that the SIT did not mention the reasons for questioning in the notice. The stay would be in force till December 5, when the high court takes up the hearing again.
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