Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has filed a writ petition in the High Court challenging the dismissal of his plea (by Vijayawada NIA Court) for a probe into the deeper conspiracy behind the Kodi-Kathi attack on him by J. Srinivasa Rao.
High Court judge, Justice K. Sreenivasa Reddy, heard the matter briefly and adjourned it to October 17.
The case has been assigned to the court of the III Additional District Judge-cum-Special Judge for a trial of SPE and ACB cases in Visakhapatnam on August 1 on jurisdictional grounds.
The Vijayawada NIA Court had conclusively ruled out the need for an in-depth investigation into the conspiracy and the persons involved in the attack that took place at Visakhapatnam airport in October 2018, when Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy was Leader of Opposition in Legislative Assembly.
Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s main argument was that the ‘induction’ of the accused in the high-security VIP lounge of Visakhapatnam airport, smuggling of the weapon (Kodi Kathi - a knife tied to cocks in cockfights) into the airport premises and the dysfunctional condition of CCTV cameras there indicated a conspiracy to eliminate him a few months before the 2019 general elections.
He also alleged that some top TDP leaders could be behind the criminal conspiracy, and there were some lacunae in the investigation done so far by the NIA.
The NIA submitted to the Vijayawada NIA Court that a thorough investigation by it did not reveal any criminal conspiracy and there was no role of any person other than Srinivasa Rao and it found no evidence of his association with any political party.
