Telangana HC declines to grant bail to Bhaskar Reddy in Viveka murder case

Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Monday declined to grant bail to Kadapa MP Y. S. Avinash Reddy’s father Y. S. Bhaskar Reddy and their associate Uday Kumar Reddy in the Y. S. Vivekananda Reddy murder case.

A single-judge bench of the High Court dismissed the bail petitions of the two of the accused in the case.

Justice K. Lakshman, who had reserved the orders on August 24, pronounced the same Monday.

The counsel of the petitioners had argued that his clients were unjustly implicated in the case and emphasised the lack of witnesses or evidence presented by the CBI.

The court was told that despite this, the petitioners have been incarcerated for over five months.

Senior counsel T. Niranjan Reddy had also submitted to the court that Bhaskar Reddy, now 72, is in critical health condition, having undergone numerous medical assessments while in jail.

He had also argued that as the CBI completed the investigation and filed the chargesheet in June, the petitioners were entitled to bail.

The CBI had opposed bail to the accused at this stage on the ground that they would derail the probe. The agency told the court that the probe is in the final stage.

The agency also argued that Bhaskar Reddy has a track record of criminal antecedents as well as a record of destroying the evidence in this case. It also alleged that he was instrumental in successfully influencing several witnesses in this case in the past.

Earlier in June, the CBI court had dismissed the bail plea of Bhaskar Reddy, who was arrested by the CBI in April after charging him with being part of a conspiracy to murder former Andhra Pradesh minister Vivekananda Reddy.

The CBI had filed the third chargesheet in the sensational case on June 30. It named Avinash Reddy, cousin of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, as accused number eight.

The central agency named Bhaskar Reddy and their associate Uday Kumar Reddy as the sixth and seventh accused respectively.

The CBI charged that both Avinash and Bhaskar Reddy conspired to eliminate Vivekananda Reddy because they were irked by his move to bring in Jagan Mohan Reddy’s mother and sister as rivals to Avinash.

Bhaskar Reddy was arrested by the CBI on April 16, two days after the arrest of Uday Kumar Reddy.

Avinash Reddy was granted anticipatory bail by the Telangana High Court on May 31.

Vivekananda Reddy, brother of former chief minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy and uncle of Jagan Mohan Reddy, was murdered at his residence in Pulivendula on March 15, 2019, weeks before the elections.

The CBI took over the investigation into the case in 2020 on the direction of Andhra Pradesh High Court while hearing a petition of Vivekananda Reddy’s daughter Suneetha Reddy, who raised suspicion about some relatives.

Last year, on a petition by Suneetha Reddy, the Supreme Court transferred the case to Hyderabad.