In yet another interesting twist to the case of former minister and YSR Congress party leader Y S Vivekananda Reddy’s murder, his daughter Dr N Sunitha Reddy has sought the shifting of the investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to some other state, particularly Telangana.
Sunitha filed a petition to this effect in the Supreme Court, which came up for hearing on Monday.
A division bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justice M R Shah and Justice Krishna Murari, which took up the hearing, served notices on the CBI and the state government and posted the case to October 14 for further hearing.
Senior counsel arguing for Sunitha Reddy in the case Siddhartha Luthra brought to the notice of the Supreme Court bench said she had lost faith in the ongoing investigation by the CBI into her father’s murder case in Andhra Pradesh.
“The local police and the politicians are intimidating the investigating officers of the CBI. The accused are filing private cases against the CBI officials and are threatening the witnesses,” Luthra said.
Since there is no security to the CBI officials probing the murder case, it is better the investigation be entrusted to the CBI court in other state, supervised by the high court there, like Telangana, so as to ensure fair probe, Luthra said, quoting Sunitha.
Sunitha regretted that though the CBI has been probing the case for the last two years, there had been absolutely no progress in the case.
“Unfortunately, those who are facing charges in the case themselves are filing the cases against the CBI officials stating that the central agency is harassing them,” she said.
She feared that there is a possibility of the accused wiping out the evidences and intimidating the CBI authorities.
Right from the beginning, Sunitha has been targeting the family of her cousin and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy, saying the latter was protecting the accused.
She alleged in the past that some top police officials were bringing psychological pressure on her to drop her fight for the CBI case into her father’s murder.
“It is purely a political murder. So far, not a single person has been arrested or questioned. If the investigation is delayed, there would be no witnesses in the case in future,” she said.
