The Andhra Pradesh high court on Tuesday reserved its judgement for Friday on the bail petition filed by former minister and senior TDP legislator Kinjarapu Atchan Naidu in the sensational multi-crore Employees State Insurance scandal.
The high court, which granted the first bail in the case to medical dealer Karthik, who is Accused No. 14 (A-14) in the case, on certain conditions.
The court also heard the arguments for more than two hours on the bail petition of Atchan Naidu and reserved its judgement for Friday. So, the TDP leader has to wait for three more days to know his fate.
Atchan is banking on the statement of Anti-Corruption Bureau director Ravi Kumar’s statement that so far, no evidences had been found to prove that the former minister had received monetary benefits from the dealers.
An official note said the ACB had grilled as many as 12 witnesses in the case and they had not spoken directly about Atchan Naidu’s personal monetary interests.
However, advocate general had argued in the court that it did not amount to ACB giving a clean chit to Atchan Naidu, but was only a line of investigation being pursued by the ACB.
“The accused no. 3 in the case has not yet been arrested and there are 60 more witnesses to be examined. The ACB would file a charge sheet by September 1st week,” the advocate general told the high court.
Opposing bail to Atchan, the advocate general said the TDP leader was a powerful and influential person who could sway witnesses.
“For application of Prevention of Corruption Act, it is enough if another individual is made the beneficiary. That beneficiary is A3 and the investigation is still pending. So, it cannot be concluded that A3 is not a personal beneficiary of the alleged scam,” he argued.
