Court Orders 2-Week Remand For MLA Sandra Veeraiah

The ACB Special Court remanded Sandra Venkata Veeraiah, the second TDP MLA to be arrested in the note-for-vote case, to two weeks' judicial remand - until July 21 - on Tuesday.

The ACB authorities, who had served notices on the Sattupally MLA under Section 160 Cr. PC thrice since the arrest of TDP MLA Revanth Reddy and two others on May 31 after a sting operation to expose the bribery case, recorded his statement in connection with the investigations.

However, they again issued a notice under Section 41 Cr. PC and declared him as Accused No. 5 in the case and took him into custody for further questioning.

Veeraiah was produced before the ACB Special Court this morning when the investigating officers filed a petition seeking his custody for five days as he needed to be questioned further.

The counsel for the ACB brought to the notice of the court that the probe agency had in its possession the required evidence to prove that Veeraiah had contacted Harry Sebastian (A2) on telephone as many as 22 times in a bid to strike a deal for ensuring that the nominated Telangana Anglo-Indian MLA Elvis Stephenson would cast his vote for the TDP nominee in the recently held MLC elections.

The court was also informed that Veeraiah had also tried to influence a few more legislators in this regard.

Since Veeraiah (A-5) had played a pivotal role in the scandal, it was imperative to gather from him more information in the matter and hence the need for his custody.

The defence counsel contended that Veeraiah was being falsely implicated in the case, and that it was also wrong to allege that he was evading the ACB by not responding to its notices.

The counsel said that Veeraiah's ill-health prevented him from responding to the notices immediately. In fact his ill-health was brought to the notice of the concerned officers in time, the defence counsel explained, and added that the ACB had suddenly changed the Section to 41 Cr. PC to make him an accused in the case though he had not been implicated in the charge-sheets filed against the other accused in the case.

After hearing arguments of both sides, the Special Court did not agree with the contentions of the defence counsel and found sufficient reasons to send the accused A5 to judicial custody.

Accordingly, a 14-day judicial remand was ordered. The court also directed that the accused be given special category status considering that he was not only an MLA, but also in poor health.

The defence counsel also filed a counter in the court to the petition of the ACB seeking five-day custody of the accused. A bail petition was also moved in the court simultaneously. Both the petitions will be taken up for arguments and orders on Wednesday.

It is pertinent to recall here that three other accused - Revanth Reddy, Harry Sebastian and Uday Simha - after spending one month in jail, walked out consequent to the High Court granting them bail. The ACB moved the Supreme Court pleading for cancellation the of High Court's bail order, but received a setback when the apex court dismissed its appeal while upholding the order of the lower court. Another accused (A4) Jerusalem Mathaiah managed to secure a stay on his arrest. (NSS)