Amaravathi land scam: SC stays Andhra Pradesh HC gag order on media
The Andhra Pradesh High Court had restrained the media from reporting an FIR filed by the AP anti-corruption bureau against a former legal officer and others over land purchase in Amaravati.
FollowNew Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday stayed the Andhra Pradesh High Court's gag order in relation to the media reporting of the FIR lodged against a former Advocate General of the state in the alleged Amaravati land scam.
Andhra Pradesh Police had registered the FIR against the former advocate general and 13 other persons, including two daughters of a SC Judge, on the ground that they purchased land in Amaravati area as they had prior knowledge of it being chosen as the new Capital.
A bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan said that the high court shall not decide till January last week the pending matter which relates to the alleged illegal land transactions in shifting of the state capital to Amaravati.
The High Court had said news in regard to the registration of the FIR or in the context of the FIR not to be made public in any electronic, print or social media.
The top court, which did not issue notice to chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy on the appeal, sought responses from others including the Director General of Police of Andhra Pradesh and the state's former advocate general Dammalapati Srinivas on whose plea the high court had passed the order.
Andhra HC had directed that there should be no coercive steps in furtherance to the FIR filed by officers at the Anti-Corruption Bureau’s Guntur Police Station. The court also “stayed” the “investigation” and directed that news in regard to the FIR “shall not be made public in any electronic, print or social media…”
After coming to power in the 2019 Assembly elections, the Jagan Mohan Reddy government had constituted a 10-member SIT headed by IPS officer K Raghuram Reddy to investigate alleged irregularities into projects started by the previous Telugu Desam Party government from 2014 to 2019, including land acquisition in Amaravati.
