The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Supreme Court notice to Andhra Government, CBI

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Supreme Court notice to Andhra Government, CBI

J. Venkatesan

Paritala case: plea for transfer of key accused to jail outside State

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued notice to the Andhra Pradesh Government, the State Director-General of Police, the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Director-General of Prisons, and the Inspector-General of Police, Rayalaseema region, R.P. Meena, on a petition from the father-in-law of the slain TDA MLA, Paritala Ravindra, seeking transfer of the key accused person in the case, G. Suryanarayana Reddy alias Suri, to a jail outside the Andhra Pradesh.

A Bench of Justice B. N. Agarwal and Justice P. K. Balasubramanyan also issued notice to Suryanarayana Reddy on the petition by Dharmavarapu Kodaiah, who alleged that the accused person was freely using his mobile phone from jail to contact other accused persons.

Senior counsel, Harish Salve, submitted that a bypoll was to be held in the State in the constituency from where Paritala Ravindra was elected in the 2004 Assembly elections. Since there was apprehension in the minds of the voters about the threat from the accused, he pleaded for issuing notice to the respondents, including the Chief Minister, Y. S. Rajasekhar Reddy. However, the Bench said: "For the time being, let the notice go only to these respondents."

Security to widow

According to the petitioner, the accused person allegedly murdered his son-in-law on January 24 with the alleged help and support of the Chief Minister's son, Jagan Mohan Reddy. He said that despite the assassination of his son-in-law, the State Government had not provided any security to the widow and children.

The petitioner alleged that the accused was using mobile phone from the prison cell and was in constant touch with other accused persons.

He had definite information that the accused was planning to liquidate other family members of the victim. Since the State Government and the prison authorities had failed to take steps to stop the illegal activities of the accused, it was just and necessary that he was shifted to a prison outside the State, the petitioner said. He also sought a direction to the CBI to file a status report of the investigation in the Paritala Ravindra murder case.

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