New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to bring on record the case diary of the murder of Y S Vivekananda Reddy, former Congress MP, brother of the late Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy.
At the beginning of the hearing, senior advocate Sidharth Luthra, representing the petitioner Suneetha Narreddy, Vivekananda Reddy's daughter, contended before a bench comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta, that there are two-three issues in the matter, which require detailed hearing.
Additional Solicitor General SV Raju, representing the CBI, contended before the bench that the case diary comprises 60 volumes. The apex court asked the probe agency to file the document in digital form.
After a brief hearing in the matter, the top court scheduled the matter for further hearing on April 22. The apex court order came on a plea challenging a Telangana High Court order that granted anticipatory bail to YSR Congress Party MP Y S Avinash Reddy, Vivekananda Reddy’s nephew, in the murder case.
In July 2023, the Supreme Court directed the CBI to bring on record its chargesheet along with the police records in Reddy’s murder case. The counsel, representing Narreddy, had contended that the High Court had made comments on the merits of the prosecution case and virtually accepted Reddy's narrative.
They argued that this is completely contrary to the law laid down by the apex court and that the merits of the case cannot be gone into during the hearing on a bail plea.
The plea has argued that Reddy along with other accused had destroyed the scene of offence in the presence of the state police and manufactured a story that the deceased had died due to a heart attack. The plea pointed out that CBI wanted to arrest him but they were obstructed by him and his large number of his supporters, who had camped outside the hospital, where he took shelter to avoid arrest on the pretext of his mother's alleged health issues.
In March 2019, Vivekananda Reddy was found killed at his residence in Pulivendula in the Kadapa district of Andhra Pradesh, weeks before the Assembly polls in the southern state. The case was initially probed by a Special Investigation Team of the state Crime Investigation Department but was handed over to the CBI in July 2020. In 2021, the CBI filed the chargesheet in the case and later a supplementary chargesheet in January 2022.
- " class="align-text-top noRightClick twitterSection" data="">
