CBI charge sheets 6 more for derogatory posts against judiciary in Andhra Pradesh

Amaravati, Nov 11 (IANS) The CBI on Thursday filed six more charge sheets against the accused in connection with derogatory social media posts against Judges and Judiciary of the Andhra Pradesh High Court.

With this, 11 charge sheets have been filed against as many accused arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the case so far, a statement issued by the investigation agency said.

In the latest development, separate charge sheets have been filed against Sridhar Reddy Avuthu, Jalagam Venkata Satyanarayana, Guda Sridhar Reddy, Sreenath Suswaram, Kishore Kumar Darisa alias Kishore Reddy Darisa, and Sudduluri Ajay Amruth.

The CBI had earlier arrested five accused during the investigation and also filed five separate charge sheets against them.

Investigation against one more accused is in progress. His Youtube channel has also been blocked. Moreover, warrants of arrest have been taken in the names of two of the accused who are abroad from the competent courts in India and process for arresting them has been initiated through diplomatic channels, the statement noted.

The CBI is gathering information about the accused who are abroad by issuing Blue Notice through Interpol.

Action was also initiated by the CBI, after it had registered this case to get objectionable posts removed from the social media platforms, public domains and a lot of such posts/accounts were removed from internet.

During investigation, a total of 13 digital gadgets including mobiles, tablets were recovered.

The CBI collected call details records of as many as 53 mobile connections. Around 12 accused and 14 others were examined in the case. During examination, evidence from digital platform have also been collected using Digital Forensic Technique.

It moved through Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) channel for gathering the information related to the Facebook profiles of the accused, Twitter accounts, Facebook posts, tweets, youtube videos from Facebook, Twitter, Google etc.

On November 11, 2020, the investigation agency had registered the case against 16 accused and taken over the investigation of 12 FIRs from Andhra Pradesh CID, as per the orders of High Court of Andhra Pradesh in Writ Petition No. 9166 of 2020.

The original FIRs were registered on the complaints from Registrar General of High Court of Andhra Pradesh. It was alleged that the key personnel occupying posts of prominence in the state by intentionally targeting the Judiciary, made derogatory posts on social media platform against judges and judiciary following some court verdicts delivered by the judges of the court.

Investigations are on.