Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Tuesday was reluctant to introduce temporary relief to former SIB chief T. Prabhakar Rao. Rao is currently in the United States.
Rao recently filed a temporary application seeking to prevent arrest, a major petition he filed in the case of his arrest for two weeks demanding expected bail. Senior legal counsel T. Niranjan Reddy appeared in court and asked the court to provide temporary protection for “no arrest” and the former official will return to India after that.
The senior legal counsel also said the Supreme Court has allowed another defendant, Sravan Kumar, to be arrested, and he is now working with the investigation. Senior legal counsel seeks similar relief to Rao. Once he is exempt from arrest, Rao is ready to appear before the investigation team and will cooperate.
However, the single chair led by Justice J. Sreenivas Rao made it clear that the provisional application was not made on the bench. Furthermore, the judge was reluctant to issue temporary relief in the application and said that if the dispute on the contrary was not heard, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) investigated the case and he was unable to issue an order.
The court directed the SIT until April 25, the date of the next hearing.
Senior legal counsel Siddarth Luthra appeared in court with the state government and police against the provisional application and informed the court that Rao’s passport had been cancelled and issued a red corner notice to him. Lusla said police had taken all the steps to bring Rao to Hyderabad because he fled abroad before FIR registration and investigated the investigation.
Senior lawyers believe that with Rao’s passport being cancelled, he may be deported from the United States. “When the sword was hung around the neck, the petitioner made a proposal to not arrest or grant bail,” Lusla said.
