Vijayawada: The High Court has directed the CBI director to ensure that the SIT investigations into the TTD laddu adulteration case are both free and fair.A single judge bench of Justice N. Harinath issued a final order here on Thursday on the writ petition filed by K. Chinnappanna, former special officer of AP Bhavan in New Delhi. It observed that the CBI director should not have directed Tirupati additional SP Venkat Rao to conduct the investigation. Such a direction was contrary to the directions of the Supreme Court. The high court said that in the reconstituted SIT as per directions of the apex court, two members including Guntur Range IG Sarvashreshth Tripathi and DIG Visakhapatnam Gopinath Jatti from AP had been made members. Inclusion of additional SP Venkat Rao as an investigating officer was not permissible. It rejected the submissions of standing counsel that the CBI director was empowered to nominate Venkat Rao was unsustainable. It noted that the SIT constituted by the state government had been substituted by the SIT based on directions from the apex court. Venkat Rao was not a part of this panel. The CBI director should have named any one of the officers in the reconstituted SIT as an investigating officer, it said. Supreme Court senior counsel Nageswara Rao and advocate Uday Kumar argued on behalf of the petitioner.
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