Yesterday, the Telangana High Court refused to grant bail to Y S Bhaskar Reddy, father of YSR Congress party parliamentarian from Kadapa Y S Avinash Reddy, in connection with the murder of former Andhra Pradesh minister Y S Vivekananda Reddy in March 2019.

A single headed bench of Justice K Laxman, which reserved its judgement on August 24 after hearing the arguments on the bail petitions, also declined bail to the Kadapa MP’s close aide Gajjala Uday Kumar Reddy, another accused in the same murder case.

Back in August, Bhaskar Reddy and Uday Kumar Reddy, were arrested in connection with the murder, are currently lodged in Chanchalguda jail as remand prisoners.

On June 1, they filed separate bail petitions in the special court for Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) cases, but they were rejected by the court on June 9. Immediately, the accused challenged the lower court order in the Telangana high court.

During the course of arguments, T Niranjan Reddy, counsel fo Bhaskar Reddy’s had argued during the hearing that the bail petitions of the accused should be disposed of within two weeks from the date of filing of the charge sheet, as per Supreme Court guidelines.

He said the CBI had filed the chargesheet in June and the petitioners were entitled to bail as the investigation was complete. 

The counsel for the CBI and also that of Vivekananda Reddy’s daughter Narreddy Sunitha argued that granting bail to Bhaskar Reddy at this crucial stage might create hurdles in the investigation into the murder case.

On the contrary, councel for CBI argued that there was enough evidence to prove that Bhaskar Reddy was a co-conspirator in the murder of Vivekananda Reddy. He explained in detail how there was a possibility of Bhaskar Reddy tampering with the evidence and influencing the witnesses.

Agreeing with their contentions, the high court said it cannot grant the bail to the accused as the investigation was at a crucial stage. It said as per the CBI contention, there is strong evidence against Bhaskar Reddy and hence, there was every possibility of him influencing the judgement.