A Division Bench of the Hyderabad High Court, comprising Chief Justice Kalyanjyothi Sen Gupta and Justice P.V. Sanjay Kumar, on Monday took on record the statement made by the Additional Advocate General of Andhra Pradesh that police officers would not disclose details to the media about the incident in which 20 woodcutters from Tamil Nadu died in police firing.
The bench was dealing with a case filed by one Chandrasekhar of the Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee. He sought a direction for registering a case of murder against the police personnel involved in the encounter. On Monday, the bench was informed that one Muniammal of Tirunelveli district had launched a compliant that her husband Sasikumar was killed by police in an inhuman way. She termed it homicide and sought action.
The bench wanted the AP police to inform the court whether the complaint was received or not and also the action taken on the report sent to police on April11. The bench impleaded her as one of the parties to the case and directed that she be served notice. During the course of hearing the bench did not hide its disapproval in the manner in which police officers were briefing the media, justifying the action and saying it was ‘subjudice’, wondered what the fate of the investigation would be when senior police officers like the Director-General spoke out, justifying the action.
Writ petition
against CRDA
The Division Bench adjourned to next week the writ petition filed challenging the constitutional validity of the Andhra Pradesh Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA) Act, 2014.
The case was signed by Justice A. Gopala Rao, Justice P. Lakshmana Reddy, both former judges of High Court, A.B.K. Prasad, senior journalist; and C. Sadasiva Reddy, senior advocate of High Court.
Court takes on record Additional Advocate General’s statement that police officers will not disclose details of incident to media
