No stay on High Court order quashing Umesh charges, says SC
The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to stay an Andhra Pradesh High Court order which had quashed charges of forgery against senior IPS officer Umesh Kumar.
Mr Kumar had been charged with forging documents to accuse director-general of police V. Dinesh Reddy and his wife of owning assets exceeding their legal incomes. A bench comprising Justices K.S. Radhakrish-nan and J.S. Khehar refu-sed to accede to the state’s plea and told its senior counsel R. Venkatramani and standing counsel Mahesh Babu that the matter would be taken up after the summer vacations.
The senior counsel had claimed that an earlier bench of Justices Deepak Verma and S.J. Mukhopadhya had on May 21 dictated an order staying the HC’s direction. However, when the order was uploaded on the website, it did not reflect the direction for the stay. He added that the SC had stayed the HC order so that the trial may proceed unhindered.
Umesh used forged papers: cops
The Andhra Pradesh Crime Investigation Department (CID) had earlier lodged criminal cases against Mr Kumar for allegedly using forged documents to level allegations that Dinesh Reddy and his wife owned assets disproportionate to their incomes. A division bench of the AP High Court had earlier quashed charges against Mr Kumar under Section 468 of the IPC (forgery for cheating) which entails a maximum punishment of up to seven years.
Earlier in April, a single-judge bench of Justice Ramesh Ranganathan of the AP High Court had also directed the High Court registrar to initiate criminal contempt proceedings against Dinesh Reddy and another senior IPS officer S.V. Ramana Murthy for suppression of material facts and for filing false affidavits before the court. This order had been stayed by the division bench.
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