Justice G. Radha Rani of Telangana High Court on March 21 dismissed the criminal revision case filed by arrested police officer Dugyala Praneeth Kumar, challenging the lower court order connected to his arrest.
The arguments in the petition filed by Praneeth Kumar, also known as Praneeth Rao, who is facing multiple charges including criminal breach of trust, were concluded the previous day. Praneeth Kumar was accused of operating clandestinely from the office of the Special Intelligence Branch (SIB) constituted to gather information about Left Wing Extremist operatives, at Begumpet in Hyderabad.
The Punjagutta police registered a criminal case against him following a complaint lodged by his superior officer Ramesh, an officer of Additional Superintendent of Police with the SIB, stating that Praneeth “developed profiles of unidentified persons and tracked them using 17 computers with dedicated Internet lines”. By then, Praneeth was shifted to Siricialla district, 140 km from Hyderabad, as part of general transfers affected across the State.
Subsequently, a Special Investigation Team headed by Jubilee Hills ACP P. Venkatagiri arrested him from Siricilla and presented him before a local magistrate here in Hyderabad. The magistrate initially remanded him in judicial custody and eventually gave him to police custody for further investigation. The arrested police officer knocked the doors of the HC stating that he was being interrogated consecutively for several hours without a break.
He sought a direction to stay the order of the lower court citing different grounds. The investigators were selectively leaking information about the interrogation and the case to the press to malign him, his counsel contended before the bench of Justice Radha Rani. He said that Additional SP Ramesh was also present during interrogation, which was against the rules. After conclusion of the arguments the previous day, the judge on Thursday dismissed the petition.
