A Division Bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court comprising Justice U. Durga Prasad Rao and Justice Kiranmayee Mandava on November 6 (Monday) heard the bail petition filed by J. Srinivasa Rao, the accused in Kodi Kathi case and adjourned it to November 15.
Srinivasa Rao, who allegedly attacked then Opposition leader Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy with a Kodi Kathi (a small knife tied to cocks during cockfights) at the Visakhapatnam airport on October 25, 2018, approached the High Court with an appeal to enlarge him on bail by setting aside the orders of the Special Judge for Trial of NIA Cases, Visakhapatnam, who said Srinivas was not entitled to bail because of the provisions of Section 6A(b) of Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against Safety of Civil Aviation Act of 1982.
Advocate Abdul Saleem contended in the petition that his client (Srinivasa Rao) had been in judicial remand for about five years since he was produced before the court on the day of the offence and even if the trial court found the accused guilty and convicted him under Section 3A(1)(a) of The Suppression of Unlawful Acts against Safety of Civil Aviation Act, 1982 for 10 years, he (the accused) is eligible for bail on completion of the sentence for five years in prison as per the judgment of the Supreme Court in Supreme Court Legal Aid Committee v/s Union of India.
The petitioner’s counsel further said that a speedy trial was a fundamental right of the accused and it was emphasised by the Supreme Court in an array of judgments.
An undertrial prisoner cannot be made to wait for the conclusion of the trial for an indefinite period as pre-conviction detention is punitive in nature to a certain extent and goes against the settled principle of criminal jurisprudence that the accused is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty, the apex court had observed.
