VIJAYAWADA: The Supreme Court on Tuesday listed Telugu Desam chief Nara Chandrababu Naidu's anticipatory bail plea in the FiberNet scam to January 17.
Previously, the hearing had been adjourned by the court while awaiting a decision in Naidu's quash petition in the skill development case.
A bench of Justices Aniruddha Bose and Bela Trivedi was hearing Naidu's special leave petition against the AP high court’s rejection of anticipatory bail to Naidu in the FiberNet scam case in October.
Senior advocate Ranjit Kumar, appearing on behalf of Andhra Pradesh, accused Naidu of making political statements about the cases against him and about his incarceration.
This was despite the court's order in another special leave petition, relating to skill development scam case, that had restrained Naidu from publicly commenting on the pending cases, it was pointed out.
Last month, while hearing the state government's plea challenging an order passed by the AP high court granting regular bail to Chandrababu in the skill development scam case, the top court called for the continuation of a bail condition that Naidu should not speak about sub-judice matters arising out of the case.
On Kumar's request, Justice Bose orally asked senior advocate Sidharth Luthra to ensure that Naidu, his client, did not make any statement in the public domain about the pendency of his plea in the FiberNet scam case as well.
Luthra, in turn, pointed to alleged remarks made by Andhra Pradesh's additional advocate general about the criminal cases against Naidu.
Justice Bose interjected to tell both senior counsels to ask their respective clients to maintain public silence over the pending cases, and even in the FiberNet scam case.
