Andhra Pradesh high court on Wednesday refused bail to Kadapa MP Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy in the illegal investments case and said that wining 15 Assembly seats and a Lok Sabha seat was an irrelevant factor in a criminal case and could not be grounds for granting or rejecting bail.
Dismissing the bail application, Justice Samudrala Govindarajulu said that the individual right of a petitioner for bail could not be given precedence over the larger public interest when there were allegations against the accused of causing wrongful loss by way of deprivation of public money which was meant for development and welfare of the people.
The Central Bureau of Investigation has alleged that Mr Jagan Mohan Reddy had amassed Rs43,000 crore by using his late father’s official position as the chief minister of the state.
Agreeing with the arguments of the CBI, the judge said he was of the opinion that there was a likelihood of the accused tampering with evidence and influencing witnesses if released on bail. Refuting the contentions of Mr Jagan Mohan Reddy’s senior counsel Mr Ram Jethmalani that the CBI was probing issues which were not in the FIR, the judge observed that it was a well-settled principle of law that an FIR was not an encyclopaedia of a criminal case does not prevent investigation into related matters.
As the CBI’s investigations into the alleged involvement of the accused in hawala transactions and violation of the Money Laundering Act was pending, the judge said that granting the accused bail at this juncture would not be proper. The YSR Congress president has been in Chanchalguda Central Prison as a under trial prisoner from May 28.