• By Mayukh Debnath
  • Tue, 26 Sep 2023 06:32 PM (IST)
  • Source:ANI
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Telugu Desam Party National General Secretary Nara Lokesh and party MP K Ravindra Kumar on Tuesday wrote seperate letters to President Droupadi Murmu, seeking her intervention in former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu's arrest in the multi-crore skill development scam case. In his letter, Nara Lokesh, who is also the son of the ex-CM, termed his father's arrest "illegal".

"It is essential to emphasize that there is no evidence supporting this fabricated scam and hence the accusations made against our leader stand falsified. These charges appear to be nothing more than a political conspiracy aimed at tarnishing his unblemished and non-corrupt reputation," Lokesh wrote in his letter to President Murmu.

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Earlier, on Monday, the Supreme Court rejected urgent hearing of Naidu's bail plea, which was not listed in mentioning list. A bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra asked the TDP chief's counsel to get the matter listed for Tuesday.

(TDP president and former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu's wife Nara Bhuvaneshwari, son N. Lokesh and daughter-in-law N. Brahmani speak to the media after meeting him in Vijayawada Jail, in Vijayawada earlier this month. Pic credits: ANI)

Naidu approached SC after the Andhra Pradesh High Court on Friday rejected his petition to quash the FIR against him. In his plea to the High Court, Naidu had contended that under Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act, no FIR against a public servant could be registered without prior sanction of the appropriate authority.

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The FIR against Naidu was registered on December 9, 2021, and he was added as accused number 37 in the case on September 7, 2023. Section 17 A of the Prevention of Corruption Act was not complied with by the Andhra Pradesh Crime Investigation Department (CID) as "no permission was obtained from the competent authority", the plea stated. As Naidu was the Chief Minister at the time of the commission of the alleged offence relating to the skill development scam, the competent authority would have been the Governor of the state.

 

(With inputs from ANI)