At last, the Crime Investigation Department authorities of the Andhra Pradesh police served notice on Telugu Desam Party general secretary Nara Lokesh in New Delhi, asking him to appear before them for questioning in the Amaravati inner ring road case.
The CID authorities sent the notice to Lokesh on his mobile phone, stating that he should appear before the investigating authority at 10 am on October 4 at the CID headquarters, Mangalagiri in Guntur district. The notice was served under Section 41-A of the Criminal Procedure Code.
Later, they came to the residence of TDP parliament member Galla Jayadev, where Lokesh has been staying and handed over the notice to him. The TDP general secretary acknowledged the receipt of the notice both on WhatsApp and personally.
Earlier, Lokesh refuted the reports appearing in a section of media that he was absconding and was evading the CID authorities in Delhi. He said he was very much available in the TDP MP’s residence and had not gone anywhere.
In fact, he held a video conference from Galla Jayadev’s residence with the TDP senior leaders led by K Atchennaidu and others, who were in Nandyal to discuss the party plan of action. The TDP also released the photographs to the media about his video conference.
Lokesh was supposed to restart his padayatra from Razole in Konaseema district from Friday, but dropped the plan, following reports that the CID might arrest him in Amaravati inner ring road case in which he was named accused no. 14 (A-14), soon after he lands in Andhra Pradesh.
When his bail petition came up before the high court on Friday afternoon, advocate general Sriram Subrahmanyam told the court that the government had no plans to arrest Lokesh immediately, but would serve a notice to him under Section 41-A of Criminal Procedure Code for questioning.
The A-G said the CID would consider arresting Lokesh only with the permission of the court, if he did not cooperate with it during the questioning.
The high court said since the CID does not want to arrest Lokesh but would only question him after servicing notice, there was no need to hear his petition seeking anticipatory bail and hence, it was disposing of the petition. The court asked Lokesh to cooperate with the investigation agency.
A team of the CID officials left for Delhi immediately to serve notices on Lokesh under Section 41-A of the Cr PC. However, the CID officials could not locate the TDP general secretary in Delhi. They suspected that he might be trying to avoid them.
