Theft in Nellore Court: High Court issues notices to Kakani, DGP, CBI

Nelapadu (Guntur district): The Division Bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court, which has taken a suo motu note of the incident of theft at a court in Nellore in which material relating to a case involving a state minister was stolen, on Tuesday issued notices to the CBI director, the director general of police and agriculture minister Kakani Govardhan Reddy.

The court directed the DGP to submit a report on the status of investigation and adjourned the hearing till May 6.

It may be recalled that the documents and some electronic gadgets relating to forgery and defamation case involving the agriculture minister were stolen from Fourth Additional Civil Judge court in Nellore on April 14. Advocate general S Sriram conveyed to the High Court that the government has no objection to handing over the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The incident raised suspicion as it took place a few days after Govardhan Reddy became a minister in the state cabinet.

A laptop, an iPad, three cell phones and some documents were stolen from the court breaking the locks. They were all said to be part of material of forgery and defamation case filed by senior leader of opposition TDP, Somireddy Chandramohan Reddy against Govardhan Reddy.

In December 2017, Sarvepally MLA Kakani Govardhan Reddy alleged that former minister Chandramohan Reddy had properties worth thousands of crores of rupees in foreign countries.

He released a few documents, quoting them as property documents, to the media. Subsequently, Chandramohan Reddy had filed a complaint with Nellore rural police station that Govardhan Reddy had forged documents and demanded action against him. He even filed a defamation case against Govardhan in court. Later, it was proved that the documents provided by Govardhan Reddy were fake and a charge sheet was filed against him.

Govardhan Reddy, however, dismissed the allegations of his involvement in the theft at the court and said he was ready for any probe.

The police arrested two offenders for their alleged involvement in the theft. However, the TDP alleged that the police were trying to shield real culprits by arresting two petty offenders.

The Nellore principal district judge had reportedly stated in his report that the police investigations in the case were not heading in the right direction and felt that an independent probe can bring out the truth. The High Court suo motu treated the report of the principal district judge as Public Interest Litigation (PIL) and took up the hearing.