Chartered accountants P.V. Mallikarjuna Rao and Muppalla Subba Rao, who were summoned by the A.P. CID to explain the statements they had made at a roundtable on the topic, ‘Legality of the arrest of chartered accountants’ (in the Margadarsi Chit Funds case), challenged the notices in the High Court on Saturday.
One of them was supposed to appear before the CID on the day and the other on April 17.
The Principal Secretary (Home), the Director General of Police, and the additional SP of CID, who served the notices, were the respondents in the case.
The meeting was organised by the A.P. Professionals Forum in Vijayawada on April 2, to discuss the detention of CA K. Shravan of Brahmayya & Co. in connection with the above case.
Notices were issued to the petitioners by the CID under Section 160 Criminal Procedure Code and Section 91 Criminal Procedure Code, requesting them to appear before it and produce any documents that would corroborate the stand taken by them.
Advocate P.V.G. Umesh Chandra said in the petition that the CID considered the statements of Mr. Mallikarjuna Rao and Mr. Subba Rao as interfering with its investigation and intended to intimidate the investigating officers.
It was argued that the petitioners merely expressed their solidarity and deprecated the practice of arrest of their fellow CAs in exercise of right to freedom of speech and expression guaranteed by Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution, and they had no motive to cast any aspersions on the notices issued by the CID.
Published - April 15, 2023 11:17 pm IST
