The Andhra High Court on Friday stayed further investigation against former Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu into the case registered against him by the Crime Investigation Department (CID) in connection with the alleged land scam in Amaravati. The CID had booked and summoned the former Chief Minister and his colleague former Minister P Narayana in the case.
The High Court was hearing a plea filed by Chandrababu Naidu asking that the case against him be quashed. Senior Advocate Siddharth Luther argued on behalf of Chandrababu Naidu, while Dummalapati Srinivas appeared for former Minister Narayana. Based on their plea, the court issued a four-week stay on further investigation in the case.
The duo had filed petitions in the Andhra High Court seeking that the FIR against them be quashed. The CID had earlier in its summons asked Chandrababu Naidu to appear before its CID regional office in Vijayawada on March 23.
The case against the two was filed under different sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including criminal conspiracy, and also the SCs and STs (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
As per the FIR, few farmers, through the Mangalagiri MLA Alla Ramakrishna Reddy, complained that influential persons from the previous TDP government had “cheated them by taking away their lands illegally and fraudulently” by keeping them “under confusion and fear of insecurity about their lands.”
The complaint alleged that a set of middlemen, who were part of the conspiracy, falsely led the farmers to believe that they were at risk of losing their assigned lands to the government without any compensation. The irregularities committed by Naidu and Narayana “caused irreparable loss to the SC and ST community people and weaker sections,” the complaint alleged.
Based on a preliminary inquiry into the complaint and inquiry report by CID officials, the FIR was registered against Naidu and Narayana on March 12, under sections 166 (Public servant disobeying law, with intent to cause injury to any person), 217 (Public servant disobeying direction of law with intent to save person from punishment or property from forfeiture) and 120B (Punishment of criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (Indian Penal Code), read with Sections 34 (Acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention), and 37 (Co-operation by doing one of several acts constituting an offence) of the IPC, as well as relevant sections of the SC/ST Act and section 7 of Andhra Pradesh Assigned Lands (Prohibition of Transfers) Act, 1977.