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Attack on Jagan: Accused gets bail after five years
The bench asked Srinu to submit two sureties of ₹25,000 each and appear before the local court at Mummidivaram in Dr B R Ambedkar Konaseema district every Sunday
The Andhra Pradesh high court on Thursday granted bail to 34-year-old Janipalli Srinivas Rao alias Srinu, an accused in the case pertaining to attack on YSR Congress party president and chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy airport in October 2018, when the latter was leader of opposition, people familiar with the matter said.
A division bench of the high court comprising justices U Durga Prasad Rao and Kiranmayee Mandava, which reserved its judgment on Wednesday after a prolonged hearing of the arguments on the bail petition filed by Srinu, granted him bail. Srinu has been languishing in jail as an undertrial for over five years.
The bench asked Srinu to submit two sureties of ₹25,000 each and appear before the local court at Mummidivaram in Dr B R Ambedkar Konaseema district every Sunday. The bench also directed him not to speak to the media or anybody else about the case.
Srinu moved the high court in July 2023, days after he was denied bail by the special court for National Investigation (NIA) cases in Visakhapatnam by citing certain provisions of Section 6A(b) of Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against Safety of Civil Aviation Act of 1982.
Petitioner’s advocate Abdus Salim argued that the case, which was probed by the NIA, was facing “inordinate delay” in adjudication due to Jagan Mohan Reddy not appearing in the NIA court to testify.
On October 25, 2018, Srinu, a small-time worker at a restaurant in Visakhapatnam airport, attacked Jagan with “kodi kathi” (a small knife used in cockfights), apparently to hog the media limelight. Jagan suffered a small cut on the left shoulder.Srinu was immediately apprehended by the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel at the airport and sent to judicial remand later in the day.
Since then, barring a brief period of two-and-a-half months between May 23 and August 6, 2019, Srinu had been confined to the barracks of Rajahmundry central jail, before being shifted to Visakhapatnam central jail in July 2023.The incident, which gained notoriety as “Kodi Kathi case,” had triggered a major political uproar in the state then and fetched huge mileage to Jagan in May 2019 assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh.
The case was initially probed by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the state police, but was handed over to the National Investigation Agency (NIA), following a direction from the state high court in December 2018, acting on a petition filed by the YSRCP chief seeking a probe by a central agency into the case.
The NIA, which registered the case on January 1, slapped Section 3A(1)(a) of the Civil Aviation Act (The Suppression of Unlawful Acts against Safety of Civil Aviation Act, 1982) and also under Section 307 of the Indian Penal Code for attempt-to-murder.
The trial had been conducted in the special court for NIA cases in Vijayawada since January 2019. The NIA filed the charge sheet on January 23, 2019. After a thorough investigation that went on for nearly four years, the agency told the court on April 13 this year that there was no conspiracy behind the knife attack on Jagan.
The NIA countered the argument of the chief minister that there was a deep-rooted conspiracy behind the attack on him and urged the court to dismiss his petition.
On July 25, the NIA court dismissed Jagan’s plea for a probe into a larger conspiracy. On October 12, 2023, Jagan filed a petition in the high court, challenging the dismissal of his plea by the NIA court for a comprehensive probe into the knife attack on him by Srinu. The case is still pending in the high court.
