HC to decide on "Satyam" Raju custody

By S A Ishaqui

Hyderabad, March 12 : The AndhraPradesh High Court will decide on Friday whether an investigating agency can be allowed to seek police custody of an accused who has already been put in police custody by another agency earlier for the same offence.
This question was raised by counsel for the exSatyam boss, Mr B. Ramalinga Raju and his associates on Thursday before Justice K.C. Bhanu.
The CBI, which is probing the Satyam scam, also urged the court to clarify the issue for the sake of cases where investigation has been changed from one agency to another. As it is, there is no provision in the Criminal Procedure Code for sending an accused to police custody when the investigation has been entrusted to some other agency.
The Supreme Court said in the V. Anupam J. Kulkarni vs CBI case that after the expiry of first 15 days, further remand during the period of investigation can only be in judicial custody.
There cannot be any detention in police custody after the expiry of first 15 days even in a case where more offences committed by the accused in the same transaction had come to light.
However, the Supreme Court said that this bar did not apply if the same person was made accused in a different case.
In the Satyam scam, the state government gave consent to the CBI to investigate the case registered by the Crime Investigation Department (Cr. No.
2/2009) against Mr Raju and his associates.
The CID earlier obtained police remand for Mr Raju and other four accused in different occasions and had interrogated them. However, the CBI re-registered the case and filed an application before the Sixth Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court seeking the custody of Mr Raju and his associates.
Following this, the lower court allowed the petition and remanded Mr Raju and others to seven days police custody from March 10 to enable the CBI to interrogate them.
The lower court’s order was challenged in the HC on Thursday. The senior lawyer, Mr C. Padmanabha Reddy, who appeared for Mr Raju, argued that the magistrate had no jurisdiction to grant police custody after expiry of first 15 days as per the provisions of the Section 167 CRPC.
“Tomorrow the government may hand over the investigation to local police and they may ask for custody too,” he said.