NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court is to pronounce its order on Tuesday on a plea by former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu against his arrest and lodging of an FIR in connection with alleged Rs 3,300 Cr scam in setting up skill development centres.
A bench of Justices Aniruddha Bose and Bela M Trivedi would deliver the judgment at 1 pm on January 16, 2024.
The matter related to a special leave petition filed by the TDP chief against the Andhra Pradesh High Court's order of September 22, 2023 denying him the relief.
Senior advocates Harish Salve, Sidharth Luthra, Dammalpati Srinivas, Pramod Kumar Dubey and Siddharth Aggarwal appeared for Naidu.
The Andhra Pradesh government was represented by senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, Ranjit Kumar and Jaydeep Gupta, S Niranjan Reddy and others.
The Crime Investigation Department (CID) had arrested Naidu on September 8, 2022 in the 2021 FIR.
The High Court had on September 22, 2022 refused to quash the FIR lodged on December 9, 2021 and order of his judicial remand in a case related to setting up skill development centres.
Naidu, however, was granted regular bail in November, last year.
The APSSDC was set up in 2016 during Naidu's stint as CM to empower unemployed youth by providing skill training to enhance their employability. The CID claimed the project was initiated without following standard tendering process and the cabinet did not provide clearance for it.
He claimed the initiation of the enquiry and the registration of the FIR are non est.
Both have been initiated and investigation continued till date without a mandatory approval under Section 17-A of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, as amended on July 26, 2018.
He claimed the action against him as "an orchestrated campaign of regime revenge and to derail the largest opposition, the Telugu Desam Party".
He claimed he has been illegally put to custody in a FIR and investigation, barred by law.
"The extent of the political vendetta, is further demonstrated from the belated application for grant of police custody on September 11, 2023, which names the political opponent i.e. the TDP and also the petitioner's family, which is being targeted to crush all opposition to the party in power in the State with elections coming near in 2024," it said.
This motivated campaign of harassment has been allowed to continue by the Courts unabated despite patent illegality in the FIR, it claimed.
The allegation against the petitioner, though unfounded, is relatable to the decisions taken in discharge of his official duties as Chief Minister, the plea stated.
