New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday refused to consider the urgent listing of former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu seeking to quash the FIR against him. A bench of CJI DY Chandrachud, Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Mishra turned down Naidu’s plea for urgent listing after it was mentioned by Senior Advocate Siddharth Luthra.
“This is related to the State of Andhra Pradesh where the opposition is being curbed…he was arrested on September 8,” Luthra said.
Refusing to consider out of turn mentioning, CJI asked him to mention it again on Tuesday.“Come tomorrow in the mentioning list,” CJI told Luthra.
Chandrababu Naidu approached the top court against Andhra Pradesh HC on September 22, 2023 order refusing to quash the FIR and the order dated September 10, 2023, of judicial remand.
The Andhra Pradesh CID had registered an FIR wherein Naidu was arraigned as an accused of allegedly misappropriating funds in the multi-crore skill development scam asking the leader to mention his petition on Tuesday.
The former Chief Minister was named as accused 37 in the FIR which was booked under sections 166, 167, 418, 240, 465, 468, 471, 477A, 409, 201 and 120B IPC read with sections 12, 13 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. (“PC Act”) on December 9, 2021.
TDP leader in his plea has argued that he was arrested in an illegal manner and deprived of his liberty motivated only by political reasons by disregarding the fact that all actions were initiated without obtaining the sanction mandated by section 17A of the PC Act.
Section 17A of the PC Act mandates police officers to seek prior approval from a competent authority before conducting an inquiry or investigation into an offence related to any recommendations made or decision taken by a public servant in the discharge of his public functions. The former minister in his plea has argued that the approval should have been taken from the Governor in his case.
