The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a petition challenging the Telangana High Court order that quashed a 2016 case against Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy filed under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act, Live Law reported.
The case pertains to allegations that Reddy allegedly instigated persons who broke into the SC Mutually Aided Cooperative Housing Society in Razole constituency, vandalised the premises with a bulldozer and shouted casteist remarks at the complainant, who had tried to stop them, the legal news outlet reported.
A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul Pancholi observed that the High Court had, in July, correctly quashed the matter, as no prima facie case had been found against Reddy.
It verbally observed that the matter appeared to be a case of misusing courts for political battles, Live Law reported.
When the counsel representing the petitioner argued that the High Court had not considered Section 6 of the SC/ST Act that penalises abetment of offences, the chief justice said that the matter being raised was “only for political mileage”, Live Law reported.
While the counsel said that the case was from 2016 when Reddy was not the chief minister, the bench responded that the Congress leader was an active politician at the time.
Reddy was a member of the Telugu Desam Party at the time.
Bagchi observed that there was no evidence linking Reddy to the incident except for hearsay.
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