Jerusalem Mathaiah, one of the main accused in the cash-for-votes scam that rocked Telangana in 2015, on Friday expressed his wish to argue his own case in front of the Supreme Court bench and also alleged that there was a threat to his life in both Telugu states.
According to media reports, a bench of Justice S A Bobde and Justice L Nageswara Rao heard his plea and directed the Telangana DGP to provide security to Mathaiah at his Hyderabad residence, before adjourning the case to November 22.
In May this year, Mathaiah had demanded a CBI probe into the case and said that both Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and his Telangana counterpart K Chandrasekhar Rao, were "using the cases to suit their own needs."
He also said that he was ready to turn an approver to place all “facts” before the apex court and filed a plea in the SC over the same.
In a letter to the Chief Justice of India, Mathaiah said, “I am getting life threats from the governments in the two states. To hide their mistakes, they are trying to kill me. So, please allow me to reveal all facts of the case."
He had also alleged that two TRS Ministers had offered him money when the scam broke out, to speak against TDP chief Naidu.
"All the evidence to support this is also in the same phone call records and files that were submitted to KCR," he said.
The case
Telangana TDP legislator A Revanth Reddy was caught red-handed by the ACB on May 31, 2015, when he was offering Rs 50 lakh to Independent MLA Stephenson to make him vote for the TDP-BJP candidate in the elections to the Telangana legislative council.
ACB, which had laid a trap on a complaint by Stephenson, also arrested Revanth Reddy's aides. TRS leaders have been alleging that Naidu is the mastermind in the scam and he should be booked.
The ACB had earlier said that there were 516 telephone conversation records in the phone of Sebastian, one of the aides arrested, of which 102 are related to the cash-for-vote case.