On Monday, the Supreme Court instructed Chandrababu Naidu’s lawyer to file a petition asking for the suppression of the FIR that had been filed against him in the skill development scam case by September 26. The bench instructed senior attorney Siddharth Luthra, who was representing Naidu, to mention the case tomorrow because it was not on the list of cases to be mentioned for urgent hearing.
In the State of Andhra Pradesh, the opposition is being repressed, according to Luthra and the bench. Come tomorrow in the mentioning list, a bench consisting of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra commanded.
Naidu petitioned the Supreme Court in opposition to the High Court’s Friday decision to uphold the FIR. He requested the cancellation of the FIR filed by AP-CID in the alleged Rs 371 crore skill development scam on the grounds that the police had failed to acquire the governor’s prior approval as required by the PC Act.
In his plea, Naidu contended that Andhra Pradesh High Court had rejected his petition by ignoring his pleading that under Section 17A of the PC Act, which came into force from July 26, 2018, no FIR against a public servant could be registered without prior sanction of the appropriate authority. The FIR against Naidu was registered on December 9, 2021, and he was added as accused number 37 in the case on September 7, 2023.
Section 17 A of PC Act was not complied with as “no permission was obtained from the competent authority”, the plea stated. As Naidu was the Chief Minister at the time of the commission of the alleged offence relating to the skill development scam, the competent authority would have been the Governor of the state.
Naidu, presently the Leader of Opposition, the national president of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), called the action against him as “an orchestrated campaign of regime revenge and to derail the largest opposition, the Telugu Desam Party”.
