AP HC hands over Nellore court theft investigation to CBI

AMARAVATI: In a key development, the Andhra Pradesh High Court on Thursday handed over the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) with the investigation of a case pertaining to the theft of files and material in Nellore court in April this year. The case, the material of which went missing, relates to a defamation suit filed by TDP leader Somireddy Chandramohan Reddy against Andhra Pradesh Agriculture Minister Kakani Govardhan Reddy. The TDP leader charged his YSRCP rival with using forged documents to claim that he had amassed ill-gotten wealth.

The material, including case documents, went missing from the IV Additional Judicial First Class Magistrate (AJFCM) Court in April, 2022. A High Court division bench, comprising Chief Justice Prashanth Kumar Mishra and Justice D V S S Somayajulu, on Thursday ordered that the CBI be entrusted with the case to unravel the mystery surrounding the theft. The high court ruling, incidentally, followed the State Government's willingness for the same which was expressed before it during the last hearing.

The defamation charge by the TDP leader was in the past registered as a suo motu public interest litigation (PIL) in the High Court. Subsequently, an affidavit was filed in the High Court on behalf of the State Government by Principal Secretary, Home, Kumar Vishwajeet. It was stated in the affidavit that the State Government had no objection to the transfer of the investigation into the theft to any other probe agency.

Chandramohan Reddy submitted a few incriminating documents to the Nellore court to buttress his claim that Kakani Govardhan Reddy had fabricated the said documents to support the corruption allegations that the-now minister made against him. The TDP leader claims that those documents were part of the material that were stolen from the AJFCM Court.

In April this year, unidentified miscreants stole a laptop, an iPad and three mobile phones besides some documents from the court's record room after breaking the locks.

Even as Chandramohan Reddy pointed the finger of suspicion towards Govardhan Reddy, the YSRCP MLA quickly denied his involvement and expressed his readiness to even face a probe. The Nellore police arrested two persons in connection with the theft, only to be blamed by the TDP that petty offenders were being implicated in the case in an attempt to shield the real culprits.