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Andhra Pradesh: SC defers Vivekanand Reddy murder hearing to tomorrow
The personal assistant of Vivekanand Reddy, MV Krishna Reddy, opposed the bail given to Sheik Dastagiri, one of the accused in the murder, who turned into an approver, people said.
The ongoing saga over the probe by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the murder of former Andhra Pradesh minister Y S Vivekanand Reddy continued after the Supreme Court on Monday, deferred to Wednesday, a petition filed by the minister’s personal assistant in the ongoing matter, people familiar with the matter said.
The personal assistant of Vivekanand Reddy, MV Krishna Reddy, opposed the bail given to Sheik Dastagiri, one of the accused in the murder, who turned into an approver, people said.
A division bench of the Supreme Court justice Krishna Murari and justice Sanjay Kumar, acting on a petition filed by late Vivekananda Reddy’s personal assistant, deferred the matter to the Telangana high court, where the murder case is pending.
The bench said it would only take up the hearing on Wednesday to decide whether Krishna Reddy had any locus standi in filing the petition, as the slain minister’s daughter Sunitha Reddy had challenged his claims and said that she was the real “victim” in the case.
Her counsel Siddhartha Luthra told the Supreme Court bench that the court had already acknowledged Sunitha Reddy and her mother Sowbhagyamma as the real victims of the murder case.
The counsel also brought to the notice of the bench that the CBI had filed a supplementary charge sheet last week, naming Krishna Reddy as one of the suspects in the case. He has sought time till Wednesday to submit the copy of the CBI charge sheet to the court.
On May 18, Krishna Reddy moved the Supreme Court saying that he had first lodged a complaint with the police on March 15, 2019, about the murder of Vivekananda Reddy, and since then, the FIR has named him as the complainant. Krishna Reddy demanded that he should be recognised as the “victim” in the case.
Krishna Reddy strongly opposed the bail given by the Kadapa court, to Sheik Dastagiri, former driver of Vivekananda Reddy and one of the accused in the case, after he turned into an approver for the CBI in the case.
Sunitha, on June 13, filed a counter petition in the apex court opposing his plea. She alleged that Krishna Reddy was not the victim, but was a pawn in the hands of the accused. She said that if Krishna Reddy is acknowledged as the victim, he would derail the entire investigation by the CBI.
Vivekananda Reddy, brother of former Andhra Pradesh chief minister YS Rajashekhar Reddy and uncle of the current chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy was murdered at his residence at Pulivendula in Kadapa district in the intervening night of March 14 and 15, 2019.
The case, which was initially probed by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Andhra Pradesh police, was transferred to the CBI in July 2020, following a petition filed by Sunitha Reddy and Sowbhagyamma in the state high court.
