Telangana CM petitions Supreme Court to dismiss 2015 graft case

Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy has moved the Supreme Court to dismiss a First Information Report registered against him in 2015 in connection with alleged cash-for-vote activities. The petition challenges the validity of the case on legal grounds related to the applicability of anti-corruption statutes at the time the alleged offence occurred.

Reddy's counsel contended before the court that under the Prevention of Corruption Act as it existed in 2015, the act of offering a bribe did not constitute a punishable offence. The argument hinges on substantive changes introduced through amendments to the Act in 2018, which expanded the definition and scope of bribery-related violations.

The legal submission suggests that applying post-2018 amendments retroactively to alleged conduct from 2015 would contravene principles of law requiring that criminal liability be assessed under the statute in force at the time of the alleged act. This temporal distinction forms the crux of the plea seeking FIR dismissal.

The petition comes as part of ongoing legal proceedings that have spanned nearly a decade. The Supreme Court is expected to examine whether the 2018 amendments to the Prevention of Corruption Act can be applied to cases involving conduct predating their enactment, a determination that may have implications beyond this particular case.