Justice B. Vijaysen Reddy of the Telangana High Court on Thursday instructed the State government to file a counter-affidavit in a writ petition filed by a Group-I officer under suspension seeking a direction to police to register a case against ACB officials who allegedly abused and assaulted his wife and him during a raid on his house five months ago.
Petitioner Gade Praveen Kumar was arrested by ACB officials in the first week of July on the charge of amassing wealth illegally while working as Commissioner of Jalpally Municipality on Hyderabad outskirts. He subsequently came out on bail.
Mr. Kumar filed the petition alleging that the Station House Officer of Balapur in Rachakonda commissionerate refused to register a criminal case against ACB officials despite his specific complaint that the latter attacked and abused him and his wife when they conducted searches at his house. According to the petitioner, ACB DSP G. Sreenivasulu and Inspectors Akula Srinivas and M. Renuka searched his house in Balapur on June 30.
Mr. Kumar contended that the search party disconnected the surveillance cameras while conducting the searches. They were not aware that another electronic gadget was recording the searches by the ACB officials. He charged in the petition that the ACB DSP abused his wife in filthy language. Cameras connected through wi-fi recorded the assault by the ACB authorities, the petitioner said.
The ACB authorities had registered a case but they did not have power to indulge in manhandling and assaulting the government employees whose premises were searched, the Group-I officer said in the petition. He stated the allegations he had made were backed by evidence in the form of video clips recorded by the cameras.
Mr. Kumar stated in the petition that ACB officials collected his signatures on blank white papers, six blank cheques and eight blank non-judicial stamp papers of ₹50 and ₹100 denominations. He said that he had lodged a complaint with Balapur Inspector in November about the attack on him by ACB officials but the police officer declined to act upon his complaint.
