New Delhi, Sep 1 (PTI) The CBI has registered an FIR into the killing of a lawyer couple in Telangana's Peddapalli four years ago, taking over the investigation from the Ramagiri police on the directions of the Supreme Court, officials said.
Hearing the plea of Gattu Kishan Rao, who sought a CBI inquiry into the murder of his son Gattu Vaman Rao and daughter-in-law P V Nagamani, a bench of Justices M M Sundresh and N Kotiswar Singh had last month ordered the handing over of the case to the central probe agency.
Acting on the orders, the CBI re-registered the FIR of the Ramagiri police as its own case against Veldi Vasantha Rao, Kunta Srinivas and Akkapakka Kumar under Indian Penal Code sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy) and 302 (murder), among others.
According to the procedure, the CBI takes over the case by re-registering the FIR of the state police. After completing the probe, the CBI submits findings, which may or may not align with the allegations in the FIR, to a competent court in the form of a final report.
The couple, both practising lawyers in the Telangana High Court, were dragged out of their cars and murdered on the afternoon of February 17, 2021, on Manthani-Peddapalli highway when they were on their way to Hyderabad.
Gattu Kishan Rao has said that his son and daughter-in-law were trying to expose certain persons and, due to prior enmity, they were killed. The Telangana High Court had denied the plea for a fresh probe as the state police had already filed a charge sheet.
Gattu Vaman and Nagamani had moved the high court in September 2020, complaining that police were harassing and threatening them after they wrote a letter (which was taken up as a PIL) to the court over the alleged custodial death of a man in the Manthani police station.
The couple had also filed PILs on various public issues in different courts, including the high court.
Police earlier said two persons in another car waylaid the lawyer couple's vehicle and brutally attacked them before fleeing.