Sandhya Conventions MD Sreedhar Rao moves HC for bail, prosecutor opposes plea

Hyderabad: Sandhya Conventions MD and builder Sreedhar Rao, arrested on Wednesday night by Telangana Police, has approached the high court with a petition on Thursday morning, seeking bail.

Justice Kanneganti Lalitha heard the plea and adjourned the matter to Friday to first ascertain the reasons mentioned in the remand report before taking a decision on the bail.

Senior counsel MS Prasad appearing for the petitioner stated that his client was arrested at 8.30pm on Wednesday and produced before the magistrate on Thursday. It was without issuing the Crpc 41-A notices that the police took Rao into custody, he said, adding this was a clear violation of the Supreme Court guidelines on arrests.

He also said the police had immediately filed a police custody petition before the magistrate without stating what was the necessity for a police custody at this point.

Counsel also stated that the police with unknown reasons was keen on lodging false cases against his client after November 10.

Telangana state public prosecutor Pratap Reddy opposed the bail petition and argued that the plea was not maintainable. The arrested person cannot approach the high court directly for bail, unless a magistrate’s court or sessions court rejected the bail plea.

Section 439 of Crpc provides special powers to the high court to grant the bail. But it has some conditions, that the offences are of the nature specified in subsection (3) of section 437, like the punishment of above-7-years’ imprisonment. In the present case, without knowing the reasons for remand and without submitting the remand report, the petitioner approached the high court for Bail, Pratap Reddy argued.

Justice Lalitha asked the public prosecutor to get the police place the remand report of Rao by Friday morning. The judge made it clear that a decision will be taken on the bail plea after perusing the remand report.