Cash for votes case: YSR Congress MLA withdraws plea in Supreme Court

YSR Congress party leader Alla Ramakrishna Reddy on Wednesday withdrew his petitions before the Supreme Court seeking a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the 2015 cash for votes case. [Alla Ramakrishna Reddy v State of Telangana].Besides seeking CBI probe, Reddy had also sought directions to make Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu an accused in the case.A Bench of Justices MM Sundresh and Aravind Kumar on Wednesday allowed Reddy to withdraw the petitions."The appellant was also a Member of the Legislative Assembly. The appellant has also approached this Court directly ... We do not wish to say anything more ... We refrain ourselves from making any more remarks", it said..The case involved allegations that in 2015, current Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy had offered ₹50 lakh as bribe to a nominated Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) Elvis Stephenson for his vote in the 2015 elections to the Telangana Legislative Council.The same was allegedly at the behest of his "former boss" N Chandrababu Naidu.It was alleged that the bribe was paid to persuade Stephenson from either abstaining from casting his vote for MLC elections or to vote in favour of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP). Revanth Reddy belonged to TDP in 2015 before his eventual shift to the Indian National Congress (INC) in 2017.The Congress leader had allegedly promised Stephenson another ₹5 crore after the voting..The Supreme Court had in February sought the response of the Telangana government to a plea to transfer the trial in case against Revanth Reddy to a court outside the State.The Telangana CM's plea seeking closure in the matter is pending before the top court.The top court had in August 2021 sought the response of the Telangana government in that case and stayed the trial against Revanth Reddy..Supreme Court rebukes Telangana CM Revanth Reddy for questioning bail to K Kavitha.Alla Ramakrishna Reddy was a member of legislative assembly from Andhra Pradesh's Mangalagiri constituency between 2014-2024. The seat is now held by Naidu's son, Nara Lokesh..Senior Advocate Menaka Guruswamy and advocate Sravan Kumar Saranam appeared for the Telangana Anti-Corruption Bureau before the apex court.Senior Advocate Sidharth Luthra appeared for Chandrababu Naidu..Advocate Siddhant Buxy appeared for Alla Ramakrishna Reddy..[Read order]