'KCR loses,' says BJP as SIT plea to name BL Santhosh as poaching case accused rejected

In a big development in Telangana politics, a special court for the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) in Hyderabad on Tuesday rejected the plea of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) seeking to name Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national general secretary (organisation) BL Santhosh and three others as accused in the alleged poaching case of four Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) MLAs into the saffron camp. 

As per the order copy, the court stated, "Neither Law and Order police nor Special Investigation Team is competent to investigate into the offences relating to the PC Act and only the Special Police Establishment i.e., Anti-Corruption Bureau is competent authority to investigate the case.Therefore, the Law & Order Police and Special Investigating Team, which is not a Special Police Establishment, is not the competent authority to investigate the above crime." 

Notably, in November, the SIT constituted by the Telangana government summoned the BJP leader in the alleged poaching case and mentioned that there are reasonable grounds to question him to ascertain facts in the case. Following this, Santhosh was also directed to appear before the SIT in Hyderabad on November 21. 

'KCR loses again': BJP 

Following the High Court's decision, BJP's IT cell head Amit Malviya slammed Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao-led TRS government for bringing BJP leader BL Santhosh's name in the fake poaching case. Hailing the court's decision, Malviya said, "KCR loses again."

Taking to Twitter, he said, "Special ACB Court rejects memo filed by TRS sponsored SIT, which wanted to arraign BL Santhosh, BJP’s General Secretary (Org) and three others. The judge said they do not conform to the requirements of the PC Act and were not even present at the alleged scene of crime!"

Telangana HC grants bail to 3 accused 

The Telangana High Court on December 1 granted bail to the three arrested accused with certain conditions. The three accused were granted bail on the security of Rs 3 lakhs with two sureties. Apart from this, the three persons also have to appear before the Special Investigation Team (SIT) every Monday.

The other three people accused in the case were Nanda Kumar, a hotelier from Hyderabad; Swami Ramachandra Bharati alias S Satish Sharma from Faridabad and Simhayaji from Tirupati. They were arrested by the Hyderabad police on October 26 after they were caught trying to defect the four MLAs of the ruling TRS (now BRS). 

The accused were arrested based on the complaint filed by one of the four TRS MLAs Pilot Rohith Reddy under relevant sections. As per the FIR filed by Reddy, the three accused offered him Rs 100 crore as a bribe asked him to join BJP in view of the upcoming state Assembly elections.