The Hyderabad High Court, on Friday, set aside an order by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) court, which called for a probe into Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister's role in an alleged cash-for-vote scam, giving a much needed relief to N. Chandrababu Naidu.
This announcement was based on a quash petition filed by Naidu, challenging the ACB court's order issued on August 29 this year, where the court agreed with the contention of Naidu's counsel that there were no grounds for any investigation. The court dismissed a petition filed by former Congress MP U. Arun Kumar seeking a probe against Naidu.
The case is about the alleged offer of bribe to a nominated legislator in the Telangana Assembly, Elvis Stephenson, to vote in favour of the Telugu Desam Party candidate V Narender Reddy in the Legislative Council elections in May last year.
An audio tape, allegedly containing Naidu’s conversation with Stephenson and assuring him that “all commitments would be honoured” if he voted in favour of TDP, had further nailed the case in the first week of June 2015. Earlier, the ACB, which conducted the sting operation, had also produced a video of the meeting between the TDP deputy floor leader in the Telangana Assembly, Revanth Reddy, and Stephenson where Rs 50 Lakh cash was offered as an advance.
After the initial political furore, marked by allegations and counter-allegations by TDP, which is in power in AP and Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), the ruling party in Telangana, the case was put on back-burner.
The ACB court ordered re-investigation into the case in August this year when the opposition YSR Congress MLA from Guntur district, A. Ramakrishna Reddy, submitted to the court a forensic report from a private laboratory that concluded that the voice sample in the telephonic conversation with Stephenson was that of Chandrababu Naidu.
The ACB court had directed the police to examine the evidence against the Chief Minister. The Telangana ACB, which investigated the case, had filed a preliminary charge sheet in July last year, naming TDP’s Revanth Reddy and three others as the main accused in the case. They were arrested and later released on bail.
The issue snowballed into a political battle between Naidu and his Telangana counterpart K. Chandrasekhar Rao in 2015. Alleging “illegal tapping” of their phones by the Telangana government, Naidu and his party leaders demanded invocation of section 8 of the AP Reorganisation Act and handing over special powers to the Governor, who is common to both the states, to oversee law and order in Hyderabad.
Subsequently, the Telangana government stopped pursuing the case, apparently on the advice of the Union government that the two states must stop witch hunts and concentrate on development.
