The court said that Revanth Reddy should be confined to only his constituency Kodangal and not come to Hyderabad.
Telangana Telugu Desam MLA A Revanth Reddy, who has been languishing in the jail for the past one month after his arrest in the note-for-vote scandal, at last got relief on Tuesday when the High Court of Hyderabad granted him conditional bail.
Justice Raja Elango, after hearing the arguments of the Telangana Advocate General and the counsel for Revanth Reddy, finally granted bail with conditions.
The bail amount was fixed at Rs 5 lakhs, and Reddy would need to surrender his passport. The judge also said that Revanth Reddy should be confined to only his constituency Kodangal and not come to Hyderabad, and that he should be available to the investigating officials whenever required and extend full cooperation.
Along with Reddy, two other accused in the scandal Sebastian and Udaya Simha were also granted bail.
About the fourth accused (A4) Jerusalem Mathaiah, the court observed that it cannot be said that he was absconding.
Earlier, Telangana Advocate-General Ramakrishna Reddy, who had submitted in writing the reasons for opposing bail to Revanth Reddy, argued that being a legislator and an influential person, Revanth Reddy could prevail upon the witnesses to turn hostile. The case was at a crucial stage and investigations were also on to zero in on the source of the supply of another Rs 4.5 crores in the scam, and another accused (A4) was still at large and absconding, the AG pointed out. After securing the final report of the Forensic Science Laboratory some more persons were likely need to be interrogated, and hence the release of Revanth Reddy on bail at this stage would only jeopardize the probe, the AG argued.
However, the defence counsel disputed the contention of the AG, and said that Revanth Reddy had strictly followed the conditions put forth by the court earlier when he was released on bail for a day. The argument that he would influence the witnesses and tamper with the evidence was nothing but a figment of the AG's imagination, he asserted.
Delivering his verdict on the bail application, Justice Raja Elango did not agree with the contentions of the AG. The accused had been in the custody of the ACB for four days and the information required from him would have been gathered in that period, he observed, and also added that it was unlikely that accused Mathaiah was absconding.
More than to Revanth Reddy and the two others, the bail to them has come as a relief for the Telugu Desam Party leadership, which has been desperately trying to wriggle out of the web that it got entangled in due to the note-for-vote offer made to nominated Anglo-Indian MLA Elvis Stephenson to get him to vote in favor of the TDP nominee in the recent elections.
Meanwhile, the ACB seemed to be contemplating appealing in the Supreme Court to get the bail cancelled. (NSS)