The case of TRS MLAs’ poaching attempt took a turn on Tuesday with the ACB special court judge rejecting the memo filed by Special Investigation Team (SIT) arraying four persons, including BJP top functionary B.L. Santosh, as accused in the case.
The reasons stated in the petition by the SIT represented by Rajendranagar Assistant Commissioner of Police did not satisfy the requirement of law to array the four persons as accused, the judge observed in the order. In addition to Mr. Santosh who was arrayed as fourth accused in the case, the ACP had proposed to make Tushar Vellappally, Dr. Kottilil Jaggu and B. Srinivas as fifth, sixth and seventh accused respectively in the memo.
It was the duty of the investigating officer to place convincing and prima facie evidence to array the four persons as accused in the case. Nothing of the entire material, including First Information Report, remand report and confessional statements, disclose any evidence against the four persons, the ACB special court judge said in the order.
The judge said that as per sections three and four of the Prevention of Corruption Act-1988 (read with notifications issued by the government from time to time), only the Special Police Establishment (Anti-Corruption Bureau) was empowered and competent to register a FIR and investigate cases registered under PC Act.
In this backdrop, neither the Law and Order police nor the SIT constituted through Government Order Ms. no. 63 of Home department is competent to investigate, arrest the accused or invoke Section 17 of PC Act, the judge said. On this ground also, the request of the ACP to array the four persons as accused cannot be considered, the order said.
The judge said that he had perused the verbatim transcript of the audio recordings recorded by the police in the farmhouse of the de facto complainant Pilot Rohith Reddy through voice recorders on October 26. However, no incriminating or prima facie material was found against the four persons, the order said.
