Rebel YSR Congress Party MP Kanumuru Raghu Rama Krishna Raju, who was recently
arrested on sedition charges and was yesterday
denied bail by the Andhra Pradesh High Court, today appealed to the Supreme Court to revoke the order denying him bail.
In his appeal, the MP told the nation's apex court that the AP High Court had failed to take his bail plea seriously, and had not considered the grounds on which he had applied for the same (including his "feeble health", the result of a recent heart surgery). He said that the court had simply directed him to approach a lower court with his plea instead.
Raju, a vociferous critic of the YSR Congress Party government, was arrested after the AP CID charged him with "regularly and systematically" using his speeches to stir up communal disharmony in the state and to attack the Jagan regime.
The arrest comes after the leader made an appeal to a special CBI court recently seeking the
cancellation Chief Minister Y S Jaganmohan Reddy's bail. Perhaps this is what prompted him to claim that the CM was "misusing" his authority over the state police to get rid of dissenters. He also told the Supreme Court that the HC had simply not examined the circumstances of his arrest as if it had done so, it would seem that the arrest was tantamount to denying him the fundamental freedoms of speech and expression.
The rebel MP suggested that the incident was the result of political vendetta.
Though Raju was denied bail, he was subsequently produced before a Magistrate. There, he stated that he had been "indiscriminately beaten" by CID personnel after his arrest. Following this accusation, two justices of the AP HC formed a medical board to examine the MP.
The police were asked to shift the MP to Guntur Government Hospital due to the "injuries on his legs", and the concerned authorities were told asked to provide a report on the injuries as well. The police will shift him to another hospital for a second medical examination. For now, the leader will continue to get Y category security at the hospitals.