Telangana HC rejects SIT plea to list BJP’s BL Santhosh as accused

By
Dr. Ruth Nischala
-
b l santosh sit plea

In the Telangana Poaching case, the HC has ordered a stay on the SIT plea to list BJP’s BL Santhosh as accused. 

The Special Investigation Team probing the TRS MLA poaching case received a setback on Tuesday, December 6. The ACB special court rejected a memo filed by the investigation team to include BJP National General Secretary BL Santosh and three others as accused.

PC Act

According to Telangana Today, the judge G Raja Gopal stated that ‘neither the law and order police nor the SIT is competent to investigate offences related to the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act and that the Special Police Establishment (Anti Corruption Bureau) is the competent authority to do so’.

Three accused

However, the SIT plea is likely to appeal against the order in the Telangana High Court. The SIT had filed a memo before the ACB Special court. They appealed for permission to put on trial BL Santhosh (A4), Tushar Vellapally (A5), Dr Jaggu Kottilil (A6) & advocate B Srinivas (A7) as accused in the case along with the 3 main accused– Ramachandra Bharathi (A1), K Nanda Kumar (A2) & Simhayaji (A3) in the third week of November.

The court also noted that none of the accused confessed or revealed the role of the proposed accused.

Duty of Investigating Officer

The Court said, “On a careful consideration of confessional statements of A1 to A3, it is found that they did not reveal any kind of role of proposed accused A4 to A7 to commit the alleged offences. It is the duty of the Investigating Officer to place convincing & prima facie evidence against the proposed accused so as to array them as accused in the above crime (sic),”

No prima facie case

Furthermore, the court stated that entire material collected including the FIR, remand report & the confessional statements did not reveal any prima facie case against the proposed accused. “Hence the court has no hesitation to hold that no prima facie case is made out for any of the offences against the proposed accused so as to arraign them as accused in the crime”.

ALSO READ: B L Santosh gets fresh notice from SIT, orders Telangana HC