Supreme Court to hear plea for CBI probe in cash-for-vote scam in Andhra Pradesh

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a plea seeking to transfer a cash-for-vote scam case relating to the 2015 Andhra Pradesh Legislative Council election, to the CBI.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra said the petition will be heard along with another plea challenging the Hyderabad High Court decision setting aside a trial court order directing the anti-corruption bureau to probe the role of alleged suspects including Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu.

The plea, filed by YSR Congress party MLA Alla Ramakrishna Reddy, has sought direction from the apex court to Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) to hand over the probe to CBI.

"Proposed accused being the Chief Minister of the State is a highly influential person in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh especially in the capital city of Hyderabad. In view of the same, the investigation in the crime has come to a complete standstill after the filing of the initial charge sheet," the plea said.

Reddy also alleged that the state police was not acting or carrying out investigation in the matter and was not in a position to conduct a fair and impartial probe.

"Therefore in the interest of justice, the investigation be hand over to the Central Bureau of Investigation or otherwise the guilty will escape the clutches of the law," the plea said.

The apex court had on March 6 issued notice to Naidu on Reddy's plea challenging the high court order.

The Hyderabad High Court had in December last year set aside the Special ACB Court's order directing the Telangana ACB to conduct probe into the role of suspects, including Naidu, in the scam.

The matter had surfaced when Telangana TDP legislator Revanth Reddy was arrested by the ACB on May 31, 2015, for allegedly offering Rs 50 lakh to nominated MLA Stephenson in order to make him vote for the TDP-BJP candidate in the elections to Telangana's Legislative Council.

ACB, which had laid a trap on a complaint by Stephenson, had also arrested Revanth's aides.

In November last year, an ACB court ordered that Naidu's reported role in the case be probed.