Pursuant to a Supreme Court directive, the Central Bureau of Investigation has instituted a preliminary inquiry into allegations of disproportionate assets against Andhra Pradesh Director-General of Police V. Dinesh Reddy.
“We registered a preliminary inquiry on Tuesday to probe into the allegations against the Andhra Pradesh police chief that he has amassed assets disproportionate to his known sources of income,” said a CBI spokesperson.
The 1977-batch Andhra Pradesh cadre IPS officer came under the CBI scanner after a Bench of Justices B.S. Chauhan and S.A. Bobde directed the agency a few days ago to probe allegations against him and submit a status report within four months. However, the Bench made it clear that this should not be considered as expressing any opinion on the merits of the case.
The direction was issued on an appeal by Umesh Kumar, also an IPS officer, who filed a complaint against the DGP by allegedly forging the signature of Member of Parliament M.A. Khan.
As regards the appellant Umesh Kumar, the Bench said the case against him would proceed before the trial court. He has been accused of hatching a conspiracy and obtaining certified copies of the sale deeds that were in the name of different persons and filing a complaint under the forged signature of Mr. Khan.
While disposing of the appeals, the Bench said: “Admittedly, no attempt has ever been made by any person to hold the enquiry relating to the genuineness of the allegations in the complaint purported to have been signed by Mr. M.A. Khan. Even if the said complaint was in a fictitious name with a forged signature, the material annexed with the said complaint revealed that various properties had been purchased by the respondent No. 2 [Mr. Dinesh Reddy], in his name or in the name of his wife or her General Power of Attorney holders.”
The Bench added: “The complaint may be forged or fabricated, but it is nobody’s case that the copies of sale deeds annexed along with the said complaint were not genuine. It is a settled legal proposition that even if a document is procured by improper or illegal means, there is no bar to its admissibility if it is relevant and its genuineness is proved.”
