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Andhra Pradesh high court orders CID to defer Lokesh’s questioning to October 10
Lokesh is supposed to appear before the investigating officer of the CID at Tadepalli in Guntur district at 10 am on Wednesday
The Andhra Pradesh high court on Tuesday ordered that the Crime Investigation Department (CID) of the state police to postpone until October 10 the proposed interrogation of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) general secretary Nara Lokesh in connection with the Amaravati inner ring road scam.
Lokesh is supposed to appear before the investigating officer of the CID at Tadepalli in Guntur district at 10 am on Wednesday, as per the notices served to him by the CID authorities at New Delhi on September 30.
On Tuesday, however, his lawyers challenged the CID notice stating that there are several conditions in it (the notice), which are not acceptable. They highlighted the point mentioned by the CID in the notice that “Lokesh should not repeat the crime” and questioned that how the agency had come to the conclusion that he had already committed the crime.
Secondly, the lawyers also questioned the propriety of the CID for asking him to submit the board resolutions, account books and bank passbooks of Heritage Foods, considering that he was only a non-executive director and shareholder.
The CID counsel told the court that they would not insist on any documents but asserted that Lokesh should turn up for questioning on Wednesday.
However, after hearing the arguments from both parties, the high court ordered the questioning to be postponed to October 10. It asked the TDP general secretary to appear before the CID officer for questioning from 10 am to 5 pm on that day, and the court has also ordered that a lawyer should be allowed.
In another case related to Lokesh’s petition seeking anticipatory bail in the AP Fibernet case, the high court completed the hearing and reserved its judgment. The CID counsel said it would follow a due procedure of issuing him notice under Section 41-A of Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) for questioning and would not arrest him immediately.
